Operation Amity
by GhostPikachu
Summary: The takedown of the Black Organization left Conan without a cure, so he dedicates himself to tracking down the remaining members scattered across Japan. Four years later, the FBI calls him with a very personal mission: track down and capture Gin, sighted in Amity Park. Conan goes in pursuit and discovers there's more to Amity Park than meets the eye. Especially for this Fenton guy.
1. Chapter 1

_Smoke rose from the walls and furniture, mingling with the scent of disinfectant and rotting flesh. Debris came down in bursts all around him, crashing down and crackling with the flames that licked the surface. He could distantly hear the sound of shouting and feet pounding on the floors over the deafening ringing in his ears. Still, he pressed on. He had to._

 _He was_ not _leaving. The heat burned his eyes and blurred his vision. He hacked his lungs out into the handkerchief held up to his mouth and nose. He had to get that antidote. Everything he had worked for these last four years…it couldn't be all for nothing! So he gritted his teeth and kept putting one foot in front of the other._

 _Both phones vibrated nonstop in his pockets as Conan flung the door of the second to last lab open. Shakily, he reached up and pressed the button to turn on the microphone and camera on his earpiece._

 _"Is this the place, Sherry?" he choked out, stumbling into the room. The pristine white walls and floor were scorched, the paint peeling, curling and turning black as the fire consumed it. He heard another round of debris fall the next room over._

 _"This is the place," came the staticky voice from the other end. "Be quick. My desk was the one on the far right. Password's Shellingford."_

 _Conan gave a noise of acknowledgement and raced to the computer, jabbing the on button with his grimy finger. His eyes darted all around the crumbling room as he impatiently waited for the computer to boot up. He punched in the password the second the login screen popped up._

 _"Yes!" His eyes glowed as the messy desktop came into view. Dozens of highly classified files ripe for the taking sat there innocently._

 _"Good. I wasn't sure my computer would still be mine. The master file with the Apotoxin data is called—" Haibara cut off as a large red popup flashed across the screen. It read UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS. TERMINATE DATA._

 _"No, no, no!" Conan yelled. He slammed his hands down on the keyboard, hoping for something, anything. In the blink of an eye, the desktop was empty and the computer back to factory settings._

 _Panic rose up in his chest. This couldn't be happening. There was supposed to be a way out of his situation. He was supposed to get to go back to being Kudo Shinichi!_

 _"They must have done this after I betrayed them so they could stop me from doing anything if I managed to get my hands on my computer," Conan distantly heard Haibara say._

 _"Copies?" he rasped into the microphone. He_ needed _that data. All the remaining APTX capsules had already burned in the fire._

 _He didn't wait for a reply as he hurriedly checked if any of the other computers were intact. A massive groan sounded in the ceiling overhead, and Conan looked up just in time to be buried with debris._

 _Voices swam around in his mind, all overlapping with one another, but one rang out clear among the rest: "I'm sorry, but we couldn't recover the data…"_

Conan's eyes shot open as he bolted upright in his seat. He wasted no time slowing his breathing. He briefly looked around to see if anyone had noticed, but they were all asleep. Of course they were; it was the middle of the night in Japan Standard Time. Jetlag was bound to get to everybody.

Flight attendants emerged from behind the light blue door at the front of the coach class compartment. Conan's eyes flicked upward as an announcement blared over the loudspeaker, jolting much of the plane awake.

"We will be landing at O'Hare International Airport shortly. Please gather up your things. We will land in approximately fifteen minutes."

The same message repeated in English and Conan relaxed back into his seat. He was fine; it was 2004. It had been four years since that night. That was all water on the bridge, and it was pointless to dwell on it now. He needed all of his focus to be on planning for the near future.

Once the plane landed, Conan grabbed his luggage and weaved through the hustle and bustle. Just outside the gate, he caught sight of a familiar face in the crowd and their eyes met. Conan briefly glanced over his shoulder before half-jogging over to her.

"Cool Kid," Jodie greeted, offering a small wave.

"Jodie-san," Conan nodded. He took a moment to study her face, taking an extra second to check around the jaw for latex. "I take it you're here to pick me up?"

"Yes, now come on. We shouldn't stick around longer than we need to."

Once passports and everything had been sorted out and Conan was waved through, the two walked stiffly to Jodie's Honda, neither sure what to say.

Conan clambered up onto the seat and had a quick look around. If the whole Black Organization ordeal had taught him anything, it was that it always paid to be cautious. "Is that a spider in your car?" he asked, gesturing towards the floor. He never knew when something or someone could be bugged.

Jodie caught the intended meaning, of course. "No, I haven't caught one in here in quite a while. But it is winter, after all."

"Okay," Conan started, dropping the slightly youthful tone he kept in his voice in public. But hey, at least he didn't have to crank it up full throttle anymore. "When and where was he sighted?"

Jodie sighed tiredly, her expression quickly shifting to a solemn one. "His Porsche was spotted first, sitting in the parking lot of the Baxter Hotel in Amity Park. Shu came to me later after he was sent to check it out and said he was spotted again there during one of the city's 'ghost attacks.'"

Conan raised an eyebrow. "Gin was going into hiding but went through the trouble of bringing his car to America?"

"We suspect he piled as many classified Organization files in there as he could before bailing out during the takedown, and he didn't have time to destroy it," Jodie explained as she flipped the turn signal. She leaned forward so she was hunched over the steering wheel. "And then you come in. Shu was the one who suggested calling you, actually. He said that you should get to be the one in charge of capturing Gin because of your…circumstance. And, since you became an honorary FBI member after the takedown, it is well within your right to do so."

Conan shifted in his seat. "I really appreciate the FBI's willingness to let me handle Gin."

"Well," she started, cocking her head to the side, "you've been nothing but dedicated to tracking down the remaining members in Japan. It's been a massive help, and at the same time gets the FBI out of hot water with the Japanese authorities. And even if that weren't the case, I would be inclined to let you handle it anyway. It's not like the FBI's never broken the law before, and you _were_ the one who orchestrated the takedown."

"Mm-hm." Conan leaned his head against the window and watched the trees zoom past in a blur of green and brown, occasionally breaking to reveal a field of grazing cows, or perhaps a roadside diner.

Jodie took one hand off the steering wheel and lightly shook his shoulder. "Hey, I know you're jetlagged, but you need to know what's going to happen when we get to Amity Park. Here's the debrief: you're going to act like you just moved there with your parents and they have a job out of town so no one will question where they are all the time. You will go undercover at the local high school—"

Conan couldn't help the exasperated groan that escaped his lips.

Jodie paused, collecting her thoughts. "I know you don't want to have to pretend to be a kid again, but if you want this to be believable, you have to go to school. Last time I checked, fourteen year olds don't typically have jobs with the FBI."

"We've already been keeping my job under wraps. Can't I pretend to be homeschooled or something?" Conan suggested, fiddling with his hoodie strings. Granted, ninth grade was a lot better than first, but he'd done enough school below his level, thank you very much.

"With the story we've made up, your parents would have no time to homeschool you. I know it's a pain, but you really need to roll with this, all right? We can't risk Gin noticing something's off," Jodie said, her voice on edge. "This may be our only chance at arresting him. You should bring your gun with you everywhere just in case, even though you're undercover."

Conan straightened in his seat. "I understand. I'll do whatever I need to apprehend him."

Even so, it didn't make it suck any less. But it wasn't like Conan didn't understand the stakes. Gin was the worst of them all, save for Ano Kata, but he'd been caught during the takedown. It'd been what caused the scatter of members in the first place. Go for the heart, and the whole operation falls apart and turns to dust. Too bad it was too late to fix Conan's life.

It was just, well…Conan hated the constant reminder that he could never be himself again. He should be in _grad school!_ He should be preparing to start up his own private detective agency, he should be happy with Ran, he should be laughing with Hattori at a bar, but here he was. He didn't even have his own name. That had been taken from him at Kudo Shinichi's funeral shortly after the takedown. It had been a long eight years since Tropical Land. Too long.

Jodie's voice cut into his dark spiral of thought. "We're here."

Honestly, Amity Park was a little underwhelming. All the houses and buildings looked more or less the same (save for an oddball marked "Fentonworks" that didn't look terribly legal and the Baxter Hotel, which evidently spared no expense) and everything else was remarkably generic. Plus, it was about the size of a tin can.

"I expected a little more from the famed ghost hoax town," Conan remarked, studying the layout of the streets from the car window.

"Makes it a perfect hiding place for an internationally wanted criminal," Jodie fired back, clearly studying the same way he was.

"True."

Jodie soon pulled up front of a worn-down apartment building made of beige bricks stained and dirtied with age. Conan grabbed his suitcase and hopped out of the car with a quick wave to Jodie as she drove off. The lobby inside was modestly furnished with a huge coarse rug covering the whole floor that was the color of the yellow ginkgo leaves back in Japan. The lady at the desk seemed unsurprised to see him.

"So you're the new resident, huh? Where are your parents?" she asked, pushing her glasses up the bridge of her nose.

"They had to go to work, ma'am," Conan lied smoothly. In his opinion, he'd gotten far too good at it. "They dropped me off here."

"Well, you've got room 3B. Your parents already signed all the paperwork online and the movers came with your stuff earlier today, so you're good to go. Here's your key, kid." She reached over the counter with an ancient brass key and pressed it into his palm. "Don't get in any trouble."

Conan didn't bother responding and headed straight up to crash; jetlag was catching up to him and he was supposed to start at Casper High as soon as he could to avoid raising any suspicion. At least it let him observe Amity Park in a natural way.

Two days later, Conan discovered that The FBI had fortunately been thorough in all areas, so all he had to do was show up to school and tell the secretary in the main office that he was a new transfer student. She handed him a schedule and sent him on his way in two minutes flat. Conan stared at the piece of paper in his hand. He had come just after the beginning of second period, which was apparently English I with a Mr. Lancer.

He walked gingerly through the empty hallway and knocked on the appropriate door. A bald man with a close shaven beard who looked to be in his mid-forties or so opened it and made an O shape with his mouth.

"Ah, I've been expecting you, Mr. Edogawa. Please come in."

Conan had just stepped into the doorway when something rammed into his back, sending him to the floor with a yelp. He whipped his head around to see a sheepish kid with black hair stuck out at odd angles rubbing the back of his neck.

"Ack! Sorry!" He offered a hand to help Conan up, which he didn't take. The debris from the takedown had left a pattern of burn scars all up and down his arms and hands, which he would rather not get questions about. He needed to keep a low profile more than ever, and he needed to do a much better job than he'd done in 1996.

"Mr. Fenton! Late again. _You_ may not think that the color symbolism of _The Great Gatsby_ is interesting, but the exam disagrees," Mr. Lancer said dryly. But Conan had to disagree with the exam right back on that one.

Now that Conan had a better look, 'Mr. Fenton' looked like he'd just been to Hell and back. His weight was shifted to favor his right leg, and Conan could see a dark purple bruise poking out between his fingers where he seemed to be trying to hide it. Faint scars webbed across his features, but Conan couldn't tell what from. And his eyes were…weird. Conan wasn't sure what it was, but they looked just a little brighter than they should. Maybe he was too used to looking at corpses.

"Interesting," muttered the detective, putting his index finger and thumb up under his chin.

"Right…" Fenton looked to the side and scooted around him to go to his seat.

"There's an empty seat behind Mr. Fenton," Lancer said, gesturing towards the back of the room.

Perfect. Conan's eyes shone with the new challenge. He understood, of course, that he was there with a mission, and a very personal one at that. But at the same time, he never could resist a mystery. After all, how many murders had he solved while worrying about the Black Organization back in Japan?

* * *

 **Hey! I hope you enjoyed the first chapter :)**

 **This idea has been in my head for a while but I never got around to writing it so here we go. It hit me one day that the Detective Conan and Danny Phantom timelines line up really well since Danny Phantom first aired in 2004 while Detective Conan did in 1996. If Conan was six in 1996 (and yes I know that's his manga age and not anime age but shhh), that puts him at fourteen in 2004 so...I couldn't resist.**

 **I know this chapter is very Conan-centric, but the POV is going to switch around between him and Danny, so worry not. I just needed to get everyone up to speed on what Conan has been up to.**

 **Disclaimer: I do not own Detective Conan or Danny Phantom.**


	2. Chapter 2

Danny didn't like this new transfer student. Not one bit. He stared too long, his gaze lingering on his scars. No one was supposed to notice those. Nobody ever _did._ The last thing he needed was someone sniffing around all the little things about him that didn't quite add up.

Danny shot Sam a look as he took his seat next to her

"There's an empty seat behind Mr. Fenton," Mr. Lancer unfortunately pointed out, making Danny inwardly groan.

Danny could see the kid looking at him with a sharp gaze out of the corner of his eye as he made his way to the back of the room. It gave him the creeps. And to make things worse, for the entire class period, he could feel his eyes boring into his back. Danny was out of there the second the bell rang, dragging Sam and Tucker with him.

"Something's not right with that transfer kid," Danny whispered hurriedly as they all stopped by their lockers. He wrung his hands. He didn't know what it was, but there was something. "He was staring at me the entire class! This is the last thing I need with the ghost activity spike right now!"

"It's super shady for sure," Sam remarked, furrowing her brow. "Maybe we should check to see if—what was his name?"

"Something Edogawa," Tucker helpfully supplied.

"—if this Edogawa is somehow ghost-related. We can safely assume that he's not a ghost himself or being overshadowed since your ghost sense didn't go off. But maybe he's working with one?"

Tucker looked up from his PDA. "But ghosts never work with humans. We're 'puny and horrid beyond belief,'" he imitated mockingly, making air quotes, "so ghosts aren't exactly lining up to have a tea party with us."

"Doesn't mean it couldn't happen," Danny shrugged. "Ghosts aren't predictable."

"Nah, man. Ghosts are _super_ predictable. How many times a week do you throw the Box Ghost back through the portal? If I didn't know you, I'd think your ringtone was 'beware,'" Tucker retorted.

Danny sighed. He had a point. Most ghosts (or at least the ones that showed up in Amity) would never deign to even speak to a human if it wasn't for the purpose of terrorizing them. Even so, Edogawa's interest couldn't be a coincidence. At school, he was as average as they came. Subpar grades, plain face, typical build. Nothing about him should stand out. So why?

Sam crossed her arms. "Even so, we should look into it, don't you think? Anything fishy around here is _always_ ghost-related."

As the trio turned into their next class, Danny was met with the wholly unpleasant surprise that not only was Edogawa in his math class too, he was interrogating everyone else around him like he was the police or something. Edogawa sat backwards in a chair, listening intently to some guy Danny didn't really know.

Danny shot him a glare when his back was turned and sat down on the opposite end of the room, putting his head down on the old wooden desk to pretend he wasn't going to eavesdrop. He peeked through his arm to watch.

"And you say Fenton's parents are ghost hunters?" Edogawa said, jotting down notes in a little black notebook. Danny could hardly believe his eyes.

The red-head he was talking to nodded. Danny thought his name was Wes or something? "Oh yeah, he's a real loser. His parents are totally crazy. You should see their van! It's loaded up with all kinds of wacky stuff."

Edogawa frowned and muttered, "And that makes him a loser?" but closed his notebook and thanked him for the information nonetheless. Well, it was a point for him in Danny's book, although he still didn't appreciate the nosiness. Not when he had a huge secret to keep.

That point and immediately and violently retracted later that evening.

Danny sat at his desk, surrounded by papers and books. Crumpled half-finished essays and worksheets littered the top of the desk, the reading lamp shining on them like the unholy wrath of his parents when Mr. Lancer sent out progress reports. He was so screwed. Couldn't Skulker or whoever else ever take one night off?

"Danny! Your friend Conan is here to work on a project!" his mother yelled from downstairs.

"One moment!" he replied on instinct.

Then, Danny stopped his furious writing and furrowed his brow. Who on earth was Conan? And more importantly, had he forgotten about a _project?_ The thought filled him with utter horror. Danny wasted no time leaping out of his chair and racing down the stairs to find Nosy Mcnosypants striking up a conversation with his parents.

Danny's mouth fell open as he jabbed a finger in Edogawa's—Conan's, he supposed—direction. "What are _you_ doing here?"

Okay, so maybe he could have handled that better. But Danny was genuinely floored that some random guy was going so far to find out whatever possible about him.

"Danny!" his mom chided, turning back to Conan. "Sorry about that, dear. I would be happy to show you our latest inventions, of course—"

"Wait! Um, Conan and I should probably...get started on that project. Come on up to my room," Danny said, motioning for Conan to follow him. He obviously needed to have a little chat with this guy about a little concept called privacy. Danny was normally not confrontational if he could help it when he was Fenton, but this whole situation was far too suspicious to ignore.

No sooner had his bedroom door shut, Danny turned to face Conan and crossed his arms over his chest. "What's your deal?" he asked sourly. No point in beating around the bush.

" _What_ deal?" Conan replied, shoving his hands in his pockets. What deal, he says! As if he hadn't spent all day acquiring information about Danny specifically, and like he hadn't just lied to get into his house. But fine. Danny could play this game.

It slipped out of Danny's mouth in an instant. "Why are you being so stalker-y? Who are you working for?"

Conan froze as Danny mentally kicked himself. "Who am I working for?" he repeated, taken aback. A shadow seemed to pass over his face as he scrutinized Danny with renewed interest. The air in the room seemed to get heavier and sink down to the floor around them. His voice dropped lower. "Are you in danger?"

Involuntarily, Danny took a step back and started rubbing the back of his neck. "What? No, no! It was a, it was a poorly worded question! I meant, um…"

So maybe this whole thing wasn't going so spectacularly as Danny would have hoped.

Conan sighed and picked at the sleeves of his royal blue hoodie, his eyes fixed on the space poster above his bed. "The scars," he said. "Whoever it is caused those?"

"Now hold on—nothing's happened to anybody, okay? I'm just clumsy," Danny asserted. He really needed to take back control of the situation. "But what about you, huh? Care to tell me why you lied about having a project to get into my house? What game are you playing?"

"I mean no harm," Conan replied evenly. "I was just interested in what the devil it is you do to get all the injuries you've got. They're not in the right places for someone who gets into street fights, and then there's minor burn scars scattered all over the place. It seemed odd on someone so otherwise average in a mostly average town, and it piqued my curiosity. That's all. Swear." He raised his hands as a gesture of peace (though Danny did not buy it for one second).

Danny bit his lip. Conan was a disaster waiting to happen, a walking newspaper headline with bold letters stretched across the front page: GHOST BOY REVEALED TO BE CASPER HIGH STUDENT DANIEL FENTON. People in Amity Park did not just notice things and get curious. It simply wasn't done; people took things at face value instead of thinking about the implications the ghost attacks brought about death.

Too perceptive. Too likely to put two and two together. He had to find out just who this Conan Edogawa was and get rid of him before he caught a glimpse of his ghost form. What if he already knew? What if he was getting evidence that he was Danny Phantom right now? And most importantly: who wanted to know?

Danny glanced at Conan. "Okay, fine. Whatever, just get out of here. I've got homework to catch up on."

"Of course." Conan moved towards the hall, pausing in the doorway before continuing down the stairs and out the front door.

Danny let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding and haphazardly rummaged through his desk drawer to pull out his Fenton Phones.

"Guys, you there?" he asked anxiously, the essay he had been working on long forgotten.

Static and then the crackle of someone coming online. "Yeah, what's up?"

"Tucker! That Edogawa guy—his name is Conan by the way—I think he's on to me. He came to my house wanting to know about my scars and bruises. I don't know what to do. I have no idea who he's working with or what his plans are—"

"Woah, woah, calm down, Danny. I'll talk to Sam and see if she can't tail him after school one day. I'll try to dig up his official records on my PDA. You know your enemies best, so you should try to find a connection to Conan. Sam and I have got your back, dude. T.F. out."

The Phones went dead, and Danny deposited them on top of the essay. He leaned back in his swivel chair as he pinched the bridge of his nose. Whoever it was after him was not going to get away with this. Not if Danny had anything to say about it.

The problem was, of course, that most of his enemies were ghosts. They already knew about the whole halfa situation. So why send someone sniffing after his identity?

Unless…

Danny stomach dropped. Ghost hunters. With the whole bounty situation diffused, there were only three ghost hunters he knew of intent on catching Danny Phantom. His parents (who he very much doubted would have sent some random person to interrogate him if they caught wind of his 'extracurriculars'), Valerie, or the Guys in White.

Danny's night honestly could not get any worse.

* * *

 **My goodness guys, thank you so much for the reception! I was not expecting so many people to read. I super appreciate your support!**

 **There is only one truth, and it's that Conan is really nosy and obvious.**


	3. Chapter 3

Conan was already regretting taking a page out of Hattori's book and going about his little investigation in such a straightforward manner. It looked like the mystery that was Danny Fenton was going to be involved in his bigger mission after all. His words echoed in his head over and over and over: _"Who are you working for?"_

That had...several troubling implications. He had assumed Gin had come to Amity Park to hide behind the whole "ghost attack" business, but maybe there was more. With the exception of Vermouth and Gin, all of the previous Organization members had been arrested and detained, but that was based off of the records Conan had obtained before the takedown. It was not outside the realm of possibility for there to be unlisted members. Unlikely, but certainly worth looking into.

Conan's blood ran cold. If that was the case, then perhaps Gin came less for a low profile and more to rebuild a new branch of the Organization in America. He refused to let them rise back up, even if it killed him.

On his way out of Danny's room, he turned his phone over in his hand, lost in thought. A thousand theories, none of which had a happy ending, flooded his mind. If Conan had learned anything in the past eight years, it was that one could never be too careful, even if it turned out to be a false lead.

Pulling his hood up as he stepped outside into the cold winter breeze, he pulled his phone out of his pocket and dialed Jodie's number.

A click. _"Seems awfully quick for you to hear anything."_

"Could you come meet me at my apartment? It's less about that and more about something else," Conan replied, keeping a vigilant eye around him as he walked.

She seemed to pick up on the urgency in his tone. _"All right, be there in a few. Should I bring anything with me?"_

"Member records if you can. Thanks, Jodie-san."

 _"Well, if you think there's a problem, there usually is. On my way."_

Twenty minutes later, Conan arrived to find Jodie waiting at the front door, a manila envelope tucked under her arm. He silently let her in and parked himself in the reclining chair opposite the couch Jodie had chosen to sit on.

"I think you will be interested to know that a student at Casper High asked me who I was working for when I, uh...well, I might have provoked him a little," Conan looked up and lightly scratched his cheek before clearing his throat. "Either way, he tried to deny it, and I think there's a possible connection to why Gin came here in the first place. Can I see the records please?"

With an 'mm-hm,' Jodie opened the envelope and placed the stack of papers on the coffee table between them.

Conan scanned them, but no sign of any members still on the run other than Vermouth and Gin. His brow creased with worry as he looked back up at Jodie. "Is there any chance that there were Organization members not in this list? Maybe someone only Ano Kata knew about?"

Jodie's frown deepened. "Are you saying that you think Gin is trying to rebuild here?"

"It's a possibility we shouldn't ignore," Conan said as he leaned forward and rested his chin on the back of his interlocked hands. "It might be a red herring, based on such little evidence, but the Organization's reach went so far only four years ago; why take chances? Even if this turns out to be a dead end regarding Gin, it still makes me wonder if something else is going on here, ghost hoax aside. Fourteen is too young to be asking 'who are you working for' when you feel crowded."

"I agree," Jodie started, "but only because this may involve a new branch of the Organization." She slammed her fist on the table. "We did _not_ work tirelessly for years and years just for them to keep to the shadows and start again. I will talk to Black-san and see if we can't increase surveillance without letting on that we know Gin is here. You keep investigating, and do not let go of that lead on that classmate of yours, but I know you, so don't go overboard, all right?"

Conan sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "I'm perfectly aware that my primary objective is finding and detaining Gin himself. I have no intention of losing sight of that. All I'm saying is that extreme caution let us break up the Organization in the first place. Extreme caution has kept me alive for eight years. It's just that I'm not reckless enough to follow through with everything on my own anymore."

Jodie took the member list and carefully put it back into the envelope. "Okay, fair enough. I'll take this info back to the FBI and let you know. See you later, Kudo-san. Let me know if anything else comes up."

Conan nodded and watched her let herself out. He glanced at his unfinished homework with disdain, opting instead to pick up his copy of _The Sign of Four_ and leaf through the worn pages, his mind far away from Sherlock Holmes for once. What to do, what to do?

He had not signed up to have both Gin and the safety of a fourteen-year-old child on his plate at the same time. He had to keep a low profile, but if there really was a budding branch of the Black Organization, he could hardly sit by and watch this poor kid get hunted for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Well, Conan wasn't a detective for nothing. He obviously needed to find out more on this Fenton kid before making another move. He might...he might have been a tad hasty in seeing what was up. Maybe a little. He just hoped he hadn't put Fenton in danger by confronting him so soon.

What he needed to do was try to get close, gain his trust. Which was, unfortunately, much harder now than it would have been earlier that day. Well, whatever. Conan didn't make a habit of letting anything stop him in an investigation. Especially not if Fenton's safety was on the line.

Resolving to try to be a little less imposing from then on, Conan strode over to the room he'd chosen for his home office and unlocked the door, seating himself at the large desktop computer in the corner of the room as he opened the police database (an endlessly useful perk to being an honorary FBI member). He punched in the keywords DANIEL FENTON.

His records didn't indicate anything out of the ordinary. He'd never been convicted of anything, not that Conan would expect that. His family members had a connection maybe?

Many, many speeding tickets and a reckless driving charge for Jack Fenton, but that was the extent of it. So there was no visible connection to the Organization or whatever else was going on. His initial theory about witnessing something was probably at least halfway close to the truth. He could work with that. He'd worked with worse leads before.

Conan just knew that he had to stop whatever the hell was going down in Amity Park and he needed to do it before it blew up. He grabbed his discarded jacket and keys off the couch before heading out the door to do a quick scout for Organization activity. Just in case. Old paranoia was coming back in droves, and Conan couldn't—wouldn't—rest until he made sure. He'd survived through so much, and he wasn't about to let anyone take anything away from him now.

* * *

 **Our favorite sleuth is on the case! And setting things in motion, might I add...**

 **You guys are so nice ;-; Thank you so much for all the reviews and follows!**


	4. Chapter 4

"So there's good news and bad news," said Tucker, looking up from his computer as Danny entered his bedroom after an exhausting day of 'keep away from Conan.' "I tried searching him up using katakana for Conan's name 'cause it's English, and there's a ton of public records on him. He's been mentioned in a million and one newspaper articles. But...they're all in Japanese, which is a bit of a problem. And look at the pictures—I don't know about you, but to me, it sure looks like something serious."

"That doesn't sound good," Danny grumbled. "Let me see."

He leaned over to get a closer look at the pictures. Sure enough, they were all either important-looking people or places covered in police tape. He took notice of the dates of a few and raised an eyebrow. All 1996 to mid-1999.

Tucker looked back at the screen and frowned. "You looking at the dates? I thought it was weird too. I mean, we were little kids then. Why would he be involved in so much police activity?"

Danny wrung his hands. "I don't know. And I really don't like it."

The idea that a ghost hunter had caught wind of his identity plagued him to no end. Danny honestly had no idea what he was going to do if he were found out. Would his parents come "take him apart molecule by molecule?" Would he be captured like an animal for "research?" Part of him couldn't believe that anyone would have the heart to do such a thing, but the other part couldn't afford not to.

Seeming to sense his thoughts, Tucker closed out of the newspaper scans and stood up, taking a moment to stretch. "Don't worry, man. We'll figure it out. We always do. In the meantime…" He grinned as he snatched a PS2 controller off the table. "You wanna play _Baldur's Gate_?"

Danny chuckled, taking it. "Yeah, all right. But dibs on playing Adrianna."

"No fair!"

An hour later, as they fought their way through hordes of digital monsters, Danny's Fenton Phones beeped.

"What's up?" he asked, pausing the game and setting the speaker all the way up. Tucker leaned in to hear.

 _"First of all, you guys better not be playing_ Baldur's Gate _without me. We agreed on a rotation and it's my turn,"_ Sam started. Danny and Tucker glanced at each other sheepishly before Tucker moved to save and quit. _"But anyway, I wanted to know if you needed any help with finding out about this Conan guy since I'm grounded anyways."_

Head tilted, Danny puffed out his cheeks in thought. "Tuck found a bunch of newspapers that mention him, but they're all in Japanese. So I don't know what we can do."

 _"Tucker, I'm assuming you're listening, so email me the images you need translated. I'll hire a translator to do it."_

"I always forget she's loaded," Tucker murmured. "All right, Sam. Thanks."

 _"Team Phantom, am I right? I'll see you guys at school tomorrow. Keep me posted on any ghost activity unless it's the Box Ghost, in which case don't bother."_

"Can do. Talk to you later."

The call ended with a click just in time for a very familiar (and grating, and obnoxious, and aggravating, and—well, Danny could go on for a while) voice to shout "BEWARE!"

With a groan, Danny switched to ghost form, Tucker following with a Fenton Thermos in hand.

The next morning, Danny's eye bags immediately darkened ten shades as soon as he laid eyes on Mr. Lancer proclaiming Casper High to be the best school ever, with a _woo, school spirit!_ He sure the hell did not have energy for that, or the weird friendliness Conan was suddenly putting on around him for the past few days.

"Good morning," came a voice behind them. Speak of the devil. He, Sam, and Tucker all turned around to see Amity Park's resident nosypants standing there with an uncertain look on his face. Awesome. Just the person Danny wanted to see to brighten up his lovely morning. "How...are you today?" Ah, there it was. The forced smile.

"Last time I checked, that wasn't your business. Shove off," Sam demanded, shooing Conan away with her hand before Danny could say anything. He loved his friends.

Well, Conan at least had the grace to look embarrassed.

Then, Danny's ghost sense went off, and he whispered a thanks to Sam before heading off towards the source, arriving at the new counselor's office. Oh, perfect. It was another one of those blob ghosts causing trouble for no reason. A pretty standard fight ensued, but of course, Danny was a world class screw-up, and the thing got away. He made a noise of frustration as he landed and switched to human form.

Naturally, just as he did this, Mr. Lancer burst into the room with Jazz. Cringing, Danny got a proper look at the collateral damage done. Most of the furniture was broken and it was all strewn everywhere like a tornado had just hit the office. The solution, according to Mr. Lancer?

Counseling sessions. There were few things Danny had ever wanted to do less in his life.

An hour later, he sat in the icebox of a room across from one Dr. Spectra, who sat there eerily still with a wide grin frozen on her face. But everything that came out of her mouth with that over the top peppy attitude of hers stung. She sniffed out his insecurities like a bloodhound and picked at them until they were raw, but hey, she was a psychologist, right? Even so, it all felt like a slap in the face. Jazz had called him a baby. And a _loser._ And well...apparently, he wasn't worth anything to anyone.

But then again. That shouldn't be news to him.

As the minutes ticked by in that freezing, broken office he only felt worse.

And worse.

And worse.

Who was he to think he had even had halfway enough ability to call himself the protector of Amity Park? He wasn't even good at it. He couldn't even get his human life straight.

It felt like five years had passed before Miss Spectra stood up and ushered him out of her office with a cheerful wave and a "And remember, Danny—'sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me!'"

That sure didn't feel true, but what did he know?

Sighing, he turned away to make his way back to class. Miss Spectra motioned for Conan, who was waiting outside, to come in for his own meeting as he walked away, stuck in his mind in a cycle of misery.

As he shuffled into Mrs. Mattioli's room, Sam and Tucker looked up from Tucker's PDA and waved him over with a worried look.

"Danny, you're going to want to see this. Hina Wada, that's the translator I hired online, she sent one of the scans back and said she'd have the other ones in a couple more days. She asked me why I was interested in old cases. These articles—all of them are reports on _murders."_

* * *

 **I feel like Conan carries the spirit of the "how do you do fellow kids" meme.**

 **So I know the chapters have been short, but that's just how they've best been broken up as of late since there's a lot of set up, of course, and early focus is on Conan.**

 **THANK YOU GUYS for all the super nice reviews! It really means the world to me!**

 **Anyways, I have been** _ **itching**_ **to get the next chapter! I think you all will like it ;)**

 **Also, if you've got a tumblr, I'm on there under toasterthievery if you'd like to come say hi!**


	5. Chapter 5

Sitting outside the door to the counselor's office, Conan twiddled his thumbs absently as he went over more strategies to gain Fenton's trust. He internally cringed. He'd really messed this one up. "First impressions are everything," his mother used to say on an irritatingly regular basis, and she was right of course. But evidently, his detective brain had gone on override and knocked that piece of advice straight out of him.

He looked up as Dr. Spectra practically pranced out of the room, Danny in tow. As he walked off, she waved Conan in with a smile and gestured for him to sit down. The place was a total wreck, with no less than six holes in the wall. It was also a freakin' meat locker. Seriously. He felt like he was going to get frostbite if he took another step in there.

Seeming not to take notice of the subarctic temperature, Dr. Spectra seated herself behind her desk, briefly glancing at his file before looking back up at him. "So, Conan, what can I do for you today?" she asked, sickly sweet honey dripping off of her words.

"Nothing," he deadpanned, standing up. "Well, if that's all…"

"Now wait just a minute. Sit down, relax a little bit. So tense all the time. What's a kid like you so worried about?" She leaned forward, nodding for him to go on.

 _Kid._ Conan gritted his teeth. He was so tired. So unbelievably tired of pretending.

"Oh, it can't be so bad you can't tell me, can it?" She tilted her head. "You should be enjoying your teenage years, you know that? You're only fourteen once."

Ha ha.

"I suppose so," Conan answered coolly, rubbing his thumb over the marred pinkish skin on his left arm under his jacket sleeve. A mark that he had been fourteen twice. And he would be fifteen twice. And sixteen. All while everyone else moved on with their lives.

"Nervous tic?" Dr. Spectra got up and reached for his arm, that smile frozen on her face the whole time. Conan jerked away violently, leaping out of his chair and involuntarily backing up against the wall while he sent a thousand mental curses towards his reflexes. "Woah, don't worry. I'm here to help." Before Conan could even blink (how had she moved that fast?), Dr. Spectra had his arm and had pulled back the sleeve. She got an unreadable shine in her eye.

"I can explain," Conan blurted out as he covered the scarring back up.

"Third degree burns...nasty. It doesn't seem like you made very wise decisions, huh? And now you're paying the price. Numbness. Do you feel numb, Conan? Do you care about anyone?" She placed a hand on his shoulder. "Maybe that's why no one can stand to be around you. But hey! Popularity isn't everything. You're so young; you'll figure it out in time."

Not true, not true, _not true._ His skull pounded with words, present and past. Joys, sorrows, all of it. And now? Now he was so far removed from everything, could he really say he _wasn't_ just a machine for the FBI with no real emotions of his own? Everything he had now had cost him and so many others so, so much. And what had he done to repay them?

Shinichi's mouth felt dry. "I care."

A horrible, pitying look crossed Dr. Spectra's face. "Oh, sweetie, you don't have to pretend."

Now he felt like he was going to throw up. "It's—it's not like that." He tried to recall what the others had told him after the takedown. "It was inevitable that someone was going to get hurt. That sacrifices would be made. It wasn't my fault. It wasn't," he whispered hoarsely, hot tears threatening to start falling. "I did my best, I couldn't save them all because—"

Her lips twisted upward as she tutted, going back behind her desk. "Oh, come now, Conan. Everyone makes mistakes! It's okay. You just need to own up to them." She paused. "It's a natural part of _growing up."_

Shinichi barely heard her, his mind trapped in a murky fog with no way out. Blood stained his hands, running and running and running and running until the whole world was red. Red, like the flames that ate away at him, the sky as his life disappeared before his very eyes, like the police sirens wailing in the distance and the lights that bathed the ruins of the hideout. Like the apotoxin capsules. Even now, he could feel the smoke rising and suffocating him, but he was already dead. A blood-spattered crow stood on his shoulder to ferociously pick away at the melting flesh of his face, its squawking turning to laughter as his eyes rolled out of his head and fell into a frigid ocean of lies.

Really, Shinichi thought, he was a patchwork man. A jumble of sewed together pieces that didn't quite match. It was like he was ambling around, pretending to be a real person with parts stolen from other people, when he could be ripped to shreds at any moment and the facade would come down.

He'd told himself he was over this.

Dr. Spectra looked at her watch. "Oh, that'll be all for today. I have another appointment waiting outside. Now, Conan—don't forget what we've talked about! 'Failure is your best teacher!' You only need to learn from your mistakes!"

Shinichi felt himself get up off the chair and leave the room, but he wasn't really present. His mind clouded, he made a beeline for the bathroom before he had a breakdown in the middle of the hallway. The dirty white tiles squeaked under feet as he entered, but he paid no mind. He stopped in front of the big mirror behind the row of sinks, taking in his reflection. Hands gripping the edge of the solid surface counter, he forced himself to keep looking. Staring back at him was a child. A child with tired eyes, but a child. A reminder every single day that Shinichi could never go back. He couldn't undo what had been done, however much he wanted to. And now he was stuck with the consequences. But didn't he deserve it?

Rage clawed at his insides, screaming at him with voices of the past, decisions he'd made, the cries for salvation he hadn't gotten to in time. The discordant sounds came together, chanting one thing with the force of a bullet: _**USELESS CHILD!**_

He couldn't stand it; Shinichi raised his fist and smashed the mirror. A sharp pain shot through his knuckles as a drop of red fell. Distantly, he watched it dribble down the cracks, then onto the wall, finally landing on the counter. Another drop followed, and Shinichi glanced at his arm to find a couple shards of glass embedded in it. But he couldn't feel it. He couldn't feel anything at all. He was a hollow shell with nothing left.

The dam broke and the tears came down, leaving wet streaks that shone like beacons in the broken mirror under the harsh fluorescent lights. Shinichi ran to lock himself in a stall until he could get his composure back. He yanked a black marker out of his bag and drew Xs feverishly on the walls. No no no no no no no no no no no no no no no _NO._ He was _not_ a child, he was _not_ a murderer, and his name was _KUDO SHINICHI._

 _Kudo Shinichi is dead,_ a voice in the back of his mind reminded him.

He stopped in his tracks and stared at the torn up marker in his hand and then the messy Xs surrounding him as he took a shaky breath. He wiped his face on his sleeve and tried to close the gaping wound on his heart back up, slam the doors, and throw away the key. He did not need this. Not right now. He had to accept reality and get on with it. His eyes lingered on his bloody fist as he moved to wrap it up with gauze from his backpack. He had work to do.

As soon as school was over and he got to his apartment, he threw his stuff on the ground and dug up a map of Amity Park from one of those ghost tour advertisements. He cleared his coffee table and slapped the map on top, records Jodie-san had left with him in one hand with a red pen in the other, which he uncapped with his teeth. He looked down at the documents.

[CLASSIFIED]

CODENAME GIN (REAL NAME UNKNOWN)

STATUS: WANTED INTERNATIONALLY. HIGHLY DANGEROUS. SHOOT ON SIGHT.

WHEREABOUTS UNKNOWN. LAST SEEN IN AMITY PARK, ILLINOIS, UNITED STATES ON ROSEMARY AVENUE 1/23/04. CAR SEEN AT BAXTER HOTEL 1/18/04.

Conan circled the Baxter Hotel and drew a line through Rosemary Avenue. They were on opposite sides of town. That left him with a starting point, anyway. What was his route between those two places? What did he do during the day? Who did he see? Where was he staying? It was, in all likelihood, Baxter Hotel, but he couldn't rule out the possibility it was somewhere else, maybe even his car. Assuming he hadn't ditched it by now.

He sent a quick text to Jodie-san: _Any updates on that bottle of rubbing alcohol you lost?_

His phone buzzed a moment later. _No. I'll let you know if I find it._

So no more Gin sightings. Well, no surprise there. He looked back down at the map as he twirled the pen between his fingers. If Gin really was planning on rebuilding, where might he go and what might he do? And most importantly, who might he talk to? Fenton was his best lead on that, but...

He crossed off some unlikely places on the map as a sound of frustration escaped his lips. Gin could be out doing anything right now, and he couldn't _concentrate!_ Old pains and fears were rushing to the forefront of his mind before he could suppress it, sending him down a pit with no light waiting at the top.

He folded in on himself and sank into the crease of the couch. He could not afford to lose it now, not when he was so close to the end. He was fine.

He spent several hours checking and rechecking the map as he wracked his brain for any clue as to where Gin could be hiding, but nothing much came of it. He pored over the old Black Organization data he had access to on his computer, which were mostly arrest reports, only stopping when Ano Kata's name came up. His file detailed the circumstances of his arrest and the charges placed on him by Japanese authorities. Even now, his picture sent shivers down his spine. He stared at the camera with a hungry look. How many lives had he ruined? Ended?

The man was a monster.

He remembered standing over Inspector Megure's body inside the Organization hideout, unable to do anything but put a hand over his mouth and stare in horror. He remembered passing so many dead that he didn't even know as he frantically tried to find the lab with the apotoxin, and then the unidentifiable remains after the building had come down. And what he remembered most of all: that it was all his fault. If he'd taken more time to plan the takedown, if he'd been more selective in choosing who took part…

Conan pressed his palms into his eyes.

Maybe he was a monster too.

* * *

 **Conan's not having a great day.**

 **This was originally going to be part of a longer chapter, but I think it works better this way. Hope you enjoyed!**


	6. Chapter 6

A few days passed, and Conan did not feel any better. If anything, he felt worse. All he wanted to do was lie on his couch and try to block out the white noise that permeated his thoughts. Fear and anger bubbled up in his chest. He couldn't afford to do anything but track down Gin! Time was of the essence, so he put in the sleepless nights, the hours of research on his computer, the time to patrol the town for any sign of Organization activity. His irritation at the lack of results quickly grew until he felt like a volcano ready to erupt at any second. The rope tightened around his neck everyday as he forcefully shoved down feelings of hatred; for Gin or for himself, he didn't know anymore.

School was a waste of time, a needless distraction. He had much, much bigger fish to fry than the next poetry test or lab report that he was going to ace anyway. There was a killer on the loose, and Conan would be damned if he didn't do something about it. He was always out of the building not five minutes after the end of the day, heading to his apartment to try to pin down Gin. He didn't have time to try to get information out of Fenton. He was on a deadline, and every day passed with the fear that someone was going to get killed because Conan couldn't act fast enough.

The sound of the bell pulled him back to reality. Mr. Lancer came around to pick up the in-class essay he had supposed to have been working on. He hadn't of course; he had far more pressing matters to attend to. He quickly shoved his list of possible candidates for where Gin could be hiding into his pocket before Mr. Lancer approached his desk, who frowned as he picked up the blank sheet of paper. "Come see me for a minute before you leave," he muttered.

Great.

After everyone else had left, Conan stood in front of Mr. Lancer's polished wooden desk covered in papers with his arms crossed.

"Mr. Edogawa," he started, "You seem distracted. The first week you were here, you were getting excellent grades. Your records indicate the same pattern before you moved here. Why aren't you doing your work anymore? I hate to see a bright student like you ruin their future."

 _I don't have a bright future anymore. If I did, I wouldn't be here right now,_ Conan thought, but he bit back the retort. It was his fault the whole thing had happened anyway. "Sorry," he said monotonously instead.

" _Anna Karenina,_ what is the matter with everyone? It's Casper High spirit week! Look," he pulled out a mini sparkler with the school colors from the top left drawer of his desk and handed it to Conan, "I know you're new here, but do try to cheer up. And I know just the thing!" He stood up and Conan groaned. He already knew what was coming before Mr. Lancer started dancing around. "One, two, three, four, when we're done you will be sore! Five, six, seven, eight, Casper High is super great!"

Conan forced a smile on his face. "I'm fine, Mr. Lancer. Really. And, uh, thanks for the sparkler?"

Sighing, Mr. Lancer pinched the bridge of his nose. "All right. I know I'm your teacher so I'm not a first choice, but you can talk to me about anything. I can help you."

"No, you really can't," Conan spat. Mr. Lancer didn't get it; how could he? Conan was alone, and he always would be. "I'll see you tomorrow."

He turned his heel and stormed out of the room. Cheer up, he says! Just because it was his oh-so-precious spirit week did not mean Conan had to be all smiles and laughs. Mr. Lancer didn't know who was prowling around Amity Park. Maybe he would even be the next victim, and Conan would be powerless to stop it unless he could actually _focus_ without everyone breathing down his neck to be a happy little songbird. He really couldn't stand it.

"Ah, Conan," Mrs. Owens, his third period teacher, said as soon as he stepped into the room, soft chatter reaching his ears. Beakers, pipettes, and little bottles of chemical solutions littered the black lab tables along with notebooks and pencils. "Dr. Spectra wanted to see you again before the assembly this afternoon. She sounded—"

An explosion cut her off and the entire class collectively rolled their eyes as they ducked under the tables. Conan looked behind him into the hall just in time to see a streak of black and white zoom past him _in the air,_ followed by a glowing green panther. This was new. But, an elaborate trick like that usually meant nothing good, so he took off after them, ignoring the hiss to get in the classroom from the teacher. He would ordinarily think that this was part of the Amity ghost hoax, but inside a school with no readily available means of publicity? No, something else was going on here.

He slid around a corner and slammed into a row of lockers to see the back of a kid in a black jumpsuit and short white hair facing off against the cat that could talk, apparently. "You're just a scared little kid! What are you gonna do, _cry_ us out of town?"

Trying to ignore words he knew weren't meant for him, Conan scanned the hallway and the figures for any signs of the solution to the trick. But he couldn't find anything; no wires, no platforms, no nothing. How on earth were they pulling this off? And who were _they?_ Before the kid could reply, the cat lunged, sending them both through the floor. Literally through the floor. He looked around at the scratches and dents on the doors and walls that definitely hadn't been there earlier that day and then bent down to examine the spot on the mottled vinyl composition floor they'd gone through.

There had to be an explanation, right?

A more thorough search of the area turned out no further clues, completely vexing him for the first time in a long time. As far as he could tell, there was absolutely no indication that there had been any illusion at all, but there was just as equally no way that that could be true.

Before he could do a triple check, Mrs. Owens marched down the hallway. "Conan!" She held up a finger. "First rule of Casper High: do not run _towards_ the ghosts." Another finger came up. "Second rule of Casper High: you listen to your teachers and do what you're told. You could have been hurt!"

Conan was genuinely taken aback. She really believed in ghosts? Maybe it was an elaborate setup, but there was no way ghosts existed, and that was that. He was reasonably sure he would have seen one by now with the sheer amount of murders he'd solved. "But ghosts aren't real."

Now Mrs. Owens looked taken aback. "Don't tell me you moved here without ever hearing about the ghost attacks?" she asked incredulously.

"Well, yeah, I heard about the attacks, obviously, but it's all a charade to make Amity Park a tourist attraction. Everyone knows that. I mean, it's indisputably fake. I've seen videos on the news where wires are clearly visible."

Mrs. Owens smoothed down her light pink skirt and said, "I don't know what kind of rubbish those news stations have been playing, but I can assure you that ghosts are very real, and you better believe it for your own safety. Now come on; it's only thirty minutes till the spirit assembly in the gym."

Sure enough, half an hour on the nose later he sat on the crowded aluminum bleachers surrounded by the most unenthusiastic teeangers he'd ever seen in his life. And he'd seen a fair number of teenagers involved in his cases. He spotted Fenton's friends sans Fenton himself sitting on the opposite bleachers with concern written plain on their faces. Shockingly enough, this did not seem good.

The cheerleaders came out, catching his eye. If he could really call them _cheer_ leaders with the apparent lack of zeal for anything they were doing. Come to think of it, when he got out of his own head for a minute, everyone in the room seemed...less than chipper. Surely spirit week didn't have _that_ kind of effect on the entire student body? This was just unnatural.

The cheer ended and the speaker (introduced as Jazz Fenton, instantly giving her Conan's full attention) came out under the rather...interesting-looking giant spirit sparklers. They looked a little like satellites, and Conan briefly wondered where the school had gotten money for that and not for replacements for comically outdated textbooks.

"And now we'll start the chain of spirit dominoes, representing each student, and how one impacts another, and so on and so forth. When it reaches the end, we'll celebrate with the spirit sparklers!" Jazz said with enough pep for at least half the student zombies in the room. Well, more power to her he supposed. She tucked a strand of red hair behind her ear as she bent down to start the domino line.

Someone standing behind the makeshift stage pulled out a remote about the size of the palm of his hand and pressed a red button on it, starting up the sparklers. The round silver tips began to heat up and glow red. As the ring of light grew bigger, Conan squinted to get a better look. His eyes widened as he and realized: those were not sparklers. Those were actual lasers! This was an assassination attempt!

He leapt up and hurriedly made his way through the mass of people, his heart thumping as he watched the domino line get closer and closer to the button to set it off. How had he not seen it coming? Those weird dish things were obviously not _sparklers,_ and now someone was going to _die—_

All in a split second, the black and white blur streaked out of the wall and across the room, taking Jazz Fenton with it. It disappeared through the opposite wall, and Conan, ignoring the shout of Mr. Lancer to sit back down, ran towards the door, slowing down at the sound of voices. He raced down the stairs to the basement level to see some kind of creature pinning the kid in the suit against the wall. Its claws dug into his shoulders, and it was right up in his face, blocking his features.

"Not a ghost, not a boy! Who cares for a thing like you? A creepy little boy with creepy little powers!" it screeched. What the hell was that supposed to mean? And what was more, Conan was struck by how much it sounded just like Dr. Spectra. But that thing couldn't possibly be her? How did it even work? It was like a shadow with mass.

Before Conan could react, Jazz Fenton sprinted down the hall (she was okay!), shoving him out of the way. She barged into the room holding some metal object in her hand, out of breath and with her hair out of place.

"Hey!" she said, making the shadow thing look over its shoulder. Its shining green eyes unsettled Conan. "I don't know this kid. But I hope it's okay if he gets a second opinion." She pressed a button and a shiny metal suit began building itself around her, a little too big in some places but manageable,

 _What is this, a bad sci-fi movie?_ Conan thought. He had no damn idea how to react to all of this. _Come on, move it. Do something._

He watched as Jazz Fenton pulled a trigger on the inner part of the weird handle-suit-making-thing and pointed it at the creature. A beam of bright blue light (it reminded him of the unnatural color of Danny Fenton's eyes actually) ripped its way out of it and hit the shadow thing square in the back, knocking it off of the white-haired kid, who immediately crumpled to the ground.

Was _this_ one of those inventions Fenton's parents had told him about? Just what were the Fentons up to all day?

He was about to go in and help the kid when the shadow thing's form wavered, cracks spreading all across it like it was a broken vase. It then peeled like a sunburn, but at an impossibly accelerated rate. Underneath the costume was Dr. Spectra, but she looked like she'd aged a few years in one afternoon. Jazz Fenton kept the beam of whatever it was steady, and Conan was going to yell at her to _stop,_ for God's sake, that was a person! But the beam produced the same effect across Dr. Spectra's skin. It was like she was molting, with the skin falling in a ring around her feet as she got older and older and older.

Conan was really going to gag.

At the same time, was that beam like a reverse apotoxin? He shoved that thought aside and locked it away into the deepest recesses of his mind. After everything...Kudo Shinichi was dead, and he should stay dead. The very idea that he could ever go back to his old life was poison.

"No!" Dr. Spectra frantically touched her face, tugging on loose skin and wrinkles. She turned away from Conan to hide it before straightening again. Conan took a step back as she turned her neck a hundred and eighty degrees with a sickening snapping sound, laying her eyes on Jazz Fenton. "You. You did this," Dr. Spectra hissed. She hobbled forward, a faint green light emanating from her hand.

Without a second thought, Conan jumped in front of her and Dr. Spectra stopped, the smile widening. She began to whistle. That tune...Conan stood frozen to the spot, fear coursing through his veins. Green goop dripped from her fingertips, staining her suit as she brought it up to cup her cheek. His heart raced, his mind flooded with anxiety. Nanatsu no Ko came slowly from her lips, her eyes filled with horrible laughter as they bored into his own. "I knew it," she mouthed.

She knew. Conan didn't know how, but she _knew._ Was she working with Gin? Did Gin know? It was so loud, like a million cicadas all compressed in his brain and screaming ceaselessly. He took a deep breath; he had to pull himself together, at least for now.

He heard a _thunk_ behind him and watched a thermos roll across the floor towards the kid in the suit, who was tentatively standing up. He was bleeding the same green substance from his shoulder. As he stood up, his face came into full view. All fell silent. It was Danny Fenton. In a weird getup and with white hair, but the facial features were unmistakably the same. What the hell?

He uncapped the thermos and Conan thought, _What's he gonna do? Throw soup on her?_

A beam of light similar to the one from the "Fenton Peeler," as he saw now on the label, shot out from the thermos and sucked Dr. Spectra inside, warranting a double _what the hell!?_ There was no way. There was no way there could be a trick like that. He doubted even Kaitou Kid could pull off such a thing.

The room fell dim once again, with the broken overhead light and the rather grimy walls. Nobody moved.

"Danny?" Conan asked in surprise, breaking the silence. "What the hell is going on here?"

A panicked expression crossed Fenton's face, and he opened his mouth to reply. Before he actually could, Conan's feet began to slide across the floor and he looked up to see Jazz Fenton with an iron grip on his arm and dragging him off.

"Aah, ghost!" she yelled in horrifically fake fear as she pulled him along. "Don't worry, I'll get you away from the ghost!"

"Ghost? That's Danny!" Surely she could see that plain as day?

She scoffed. "Uh, yeah, Danny _Phantom._ Amity Park's local ghost hero? Jeez, gotta keep up with the times."

Okay. So Fenton was caught up in this ghost hoax thing or...whatever it was that had happened back there.

As they reached the staircase to the first floor, Mr. Lancer jogged down the stairs with renewed glee. "Miss Fenton! Your disappearing act worked wonderfully. There's still a little heaviness, but everyone's spirit has lifted monumentally! Come on now. And Mr. Edogawa, do sit down and stop running off please."

 _Disappearing act? Those lasers literally left a scorch mark on stage!_

The rest of the school day passed by without much else happening other than Fenton's more fervent avoidance of him than usual. But he wasn't paying attention anyway. His mind kept running through what had happened over and over again, trying to find some kind of reasonable explanation for it all.

And that aside, Dr. Spectra—or whoever she was—knew Ano Kata's phone number, which was _extremely alarming_ for more reasons than Conan could count. And the question was whether she was working separately from Gin or not. He wasn't really counting on it, not with his luck. He had a cap on how long he could keep this up; Gin might skip town, or he might just decide to do away with everyone he'd been in contact with and then him. Conan had to catch him before that happened. He clenched his jaw. He couldn't let Gin kill anyone else!

When school was over, Conan shut himself up in his apartment as soon as he could. He plopped down onto the couch as soon as he had locked all the doors and windows, the overwork quickly catching up with him. His eyelids felt like lead as he drifted out of consciousness, Gin's image appearing in his dreams, morphing into Dr. Spectra's peeling form.

He awoke with a start in the evening, the stars peeking out behind clouds hidden by the night sky, to the shrill sound of his phone. Seeing it was Jodie-san, he hurriedly reached over to his coffee table and flipped it open right on the last ring.

"Hello?" Conan shifted the phone so it was squished between his ear and shoulder as he got up and sat in front of his computer.

 _"Ah, hello, Kudo-san. I got a secure line set up for us so I don't have to run over to your apartment so much anymore. I talked to Black-san, and he talked to his superiors, and long story short, Interpol said they were going to send an agent to back you up with the threat of rebuild."_

"Oh, good. Sorry to inconvenience you so much with the meetings! Should I expect this Interpol agent to be checking in with me?" He typed AMITY PARK GHOSTS into the search bar.

 _"I expect so. Anything to report?"_

Conan sighed. "A lot, unfortunately. That weird counselor at Casper High I mentioned? Penelope Spectra? She whistled Nanatsu no Ko in front of me. Very deliberately. I think she knows...I don't know about my identity specifically, but that I'm lying about it." He didn't mention that that made him want to hide under his covers and never come out.

He could practically hear Jodie-san cringe. _"Are you serious? Ooh, that's not good. All right, stop any patrol you've been doing until your backup arrives. I'll tell Interpol to send their agent on the next plane to Amity Park, and until then I'll alert the local police force to be on watch for suspicious activity. We'll look into 'Penelope Spectra's' history, but I doubt anything will turn up. If you think you've been found out, maybe you should skip school for a couple of days too. Your call. Just stay safe, okay?"_

"I'll try," Conan replied. "I'll talk to you later. Doing some research on that lead."

The call went dead with a click and Conan scrolled through search results. It was practically all news reports with the fake videos he'd already seen save for one anonymous Myspace page detailing different ghost sightings around Amity Park. The pictures uploaded with it were the real deal—they looked like what he had seen at school.

His ears picked up a creak from the other room. Adrenaline rushed through him as he silently got off his chair and pulled out the pistol hidden in his jacket. He crept towards the slightly cracked open door, looking for any signs of an intruder. There was no one there.

He heard another creak and kicked the door open, darting into the room with his gun loaded and ready to go. "Who's there? Show yourself!" he shouted, turning this way and that in a frenzy to try to find whoever it was.

There was a muffled yelp coming from the direction of the old wooden door—the one that led directly outside instead of through the lobby of the building. He cautiously walked over, keeping a sharp eye on his surroundings. "I'm warning you! Come out now!"

Suddenly, the door flew open and he heard the sound of loud footsteps running away from the scene and down the street, but he couldn't see anyone. He ran out onto the street, gun at the ready, but they were already gone. Every shadow seemed to hold a pair of watchful eyes, all waiting for him to slip up and get killed.

Dread settled in his stomach as he went back inside and triple-checked all the locks. He was living his worst nightmare of the past eight years.

Something was wrong in Amity Park.

* * *

 **Whew, this one was a challenge to write. I ran into a bit of a wall trying to figure out how exactly I wanted this to go.**

 **Wow, thank you guys SO MUCH for all the kind reviews! It makes me incredibly happy!**


	7. Chapter 7

This...was not good. If Danny was totally honest, he was just about ready to throw in the towel. Panic rose and fell inside of him like a tide at any thought of Conan Edogawa. He'd recognized him _instantly, oh my God—_ and he was involved somehow in the murders of a ton of people in the nineties. Danny hated to think what someone like that might be doing in Amity Park, barking up his particular tree.

"You ready?" Sam asked, breaking Danny's train of thought.

They stood outside Conan's apartment door, ready to eavesdrop and see if they could learn anything at all about what was going down with him. With the sheer observational skills that Conan possessed, Danny was more than a little nervous about waltzing right in, even if he and Sam were going to be invisible. But they had to find out what Conan was up to if they ever had any chance of stopping him, so he took a deep breath and shoved it all aside.

Danny grabbed Sam's arm and turned them both invisible and intangible, stepping into the apartment. He didn't know what he expected, but it looked so...normal. A couch and reclining chair sat innocently by a coffee table that in this case, was aptly named judging by the dozens of empty coffee cups scattered on top of it. Honestly, the entire room looked a little unkempt now that he really looked. The wastebasket overflowed with discarded papers and newspapers were stacked by the door in a disorderly pile. Rumpled blankets were draped over the furniture.

Sam began to lead him towards the wadded up paper, but paused as a Conan's voice reached their ears from another room.

"...意図的に僕は彼女のことを知っていると思います…僕のアイデンティティについては特に知りませんが、それについてうそをついています。"

Of course he just _had_ to be speaking in Japanese. Danny inwardly cursed their luck, though even without understanding what was being said, he could tell that Conan sounded worried. About what, he couldn't say, but he did catch the English word "identity" said amidst the Japanese-native words. Oh good. He was spilling the big Danny Phantom secret to whoever he was talking to.

A feminine voice on the phone replied, but it was too quiet for Danny to try to catch anything being said. He leaned closer to the cracked door, but didn't have a chance to listen more closely before she finished and Conan replied. He crept closer to peer into the room.

"僕が試してみます。また話そう。そのリードについていくつかの研究をしています。"

Conan sat in a comfy-looking office chair in front of a computer scrolling through search results obviously having to do with Amity ghost sightings as he hung up the phone and turned his focus back onto the screen. A well-used corkboard sat on the wall, covered in photos of people and places he didn't recognize. Danny's tightened his jaw as Conan came across Mikey's Myspace page that kept up with ghost fights around town. So Conan was investigating ghosts, and so more than likely Danny. For who? On his own? And most importantly, why? Danny very much doubted that Conan's coming here was a coincidence; no, he'd come with a purpose.

Danny took another step forward and cringed as the ball of his foot connected with a creaky floorboard. He felt Sam tense up beside him. Conan froze instantly, bringing the apartment under complete silence. They turned towards the exit, and Sam tugged his arm in that direction. This time, Sam's boot caused another creak to sound through the air. They both held their breath, rooted to the spot.

Behind them, Conan flung the door open and sped into the room, waving around an actual, honest, no joke _gun_ around with his finger hovering shakily over the trigger. "Who's there? Show yourself?" he barked, eyes narrowed.

Maybe breaking into his apartment hadn't been a spectacular idea.

Now Danny was certainly not new to having guns pointed his way, but those were _ecto_ -guns. There was something wholly different about the threat of steel bullets than ectoplasmic energy. Ghost weapons could be lethal, sure, but he had yet to encounter one that actually was. They were more intended for weakening the ghost for capture, really. But this...

Sam slammed a hand over Danny's mouth as a yelp escaped his lips. The business end of the gun was pointed in their direction, and Conan shouted another threat. Before (an admittedly stunned) Danny could act, Sam reached over and ripped open the door, dragging Danny along with her and down the street, Danny's muscles taking over and matching the pounding rhythm of their feet as they took off. It was only after they were leaning on the side of an old brick building in an alley catching their breath and Danny dared drop the invisibility. He allowed the rings to wash over his body and bring him back to Fenton.

"I...should have…" he huffed, "flown us intangible through the wall…"

Sam brushed off her skirt, shaking out her arms. "Survival instincts suck. But more to the point, this is, like, really bad."

"Where did he get a freaking _gun?_ " Danny threw his hands up in the air.

Sam sighed. "If you ask me, we should be worrying about why he didn't have an ecto-weapon. If he's not hunting ghosts, then what's he doing here? Who exactly is that gun meant for? I don't want to jump to conclusions, but what about all those murders too?"

His stomach dropped like a stone at the implication. But it just didn't make any sense! Everything that happened in Amity Park was always about ghost evil plot this, ghost attack that, but this was just...different!

"Danny? You okay?" Sam asked, brows furrowing in concern.

"Uh, yeah. I'm good. Just a little shaken up is all."

Sam didn't look convinced but didn't press the issue. "Should we call the police or…?"

Danny shook his head. "They'd never listen to a couple of freshmen. Besides, we don't have all the facts. I think we should just keep a closer eye on him until we figure out what to do." He ran a hand through his disheveled bangs, cracking a nervous smile. "This sort of thing isn't really our department, but somebody's still gotta protect Amity Park."

A small smile of her own appearing, Sam slung an arm around Danny's shoulders. "You really are Amity's own hero, huh?"

"I'm doing my best," Danny chuckled. "But I could never have gotten this far without you and Tucker, you know."

Sam lightly punched his arm. "Of course you couldn't, you doofus. We've always got you no matter what. We'll figure out this whole Edogawa thing together. Though, we should probably check in with Tucker. I bet he's pacing a hole in his floor right now."

Danny taped his Fenton phones. "Tuck? You there?"

" _Oh good! How'd the stakeout go? I was starting to worry about you two,"_ came Tucker's voice from the other end. _"I wish I'd been there, but I did get some useful info on those murders in the meantime."_

"You are our resident genius," said Danny. "So, honestly the stakeout was pretty bad. Turns out that Conan is investigating Amity ghosts—we saw him on his computer looking at search results and Mikey's Myspace—but he, uh...we accidentally made some noise and he came after us with a gun."

A pause. _"He_ what _?"_

Danny cleared his throat. "So Sam and I were thinking that we should probably keep a closer eye on him so we can figure him out and put a stop to whatever he's doing if need be. Knowing our luck, probably. But, uh, what'd you find out, Tuck?"

" _Miss Wada sent some more translated scans, and the connection between these murders is that they were all solved by Kogoro Mouri, a Japanese detective who suddenly rose to fame in '96 and then just as suddenly left the spotlight in '99. So, the same timeframe that Conan was in the articles. I thought it was weird, so I did some research on this Mouri character, and found something I think you'll find interesting. Most of the articles mention a 'trance' that Mouri went into whenever he solved a crime. That got him the nickname 'Sleeping Kogoro' with the police force. That sounds pretty suspicious, no?_

" _But get this: there are a couple of outliers. A couple of these articles are about Kaitou Kid heists. Apparently when he used to stick to Japan during the 90s, Conan became known as the 'Kid Killer' because he always foiled the thief."_

Danny's nose crinkled in confusion. "Are you saying that this Kogoro Mouri was overshadowed to solve murders? And what does _Kaitou Kid_ have to do with this?"

Tucker sighed on the other end. _"It sure sounds like overshadowing to me, but Conan didn't set off your ghost sense so I guess we can rule that out. Get this, though—I think there may be a ghost involved after all. In one of the Kaitou Kid articles, they asked him how he managed to stop the most infamous jewel thief in the world. Little Conan apparently said he was Shinichi Kudo's cousin."_

Straightening a little, Danny and Sam glanced at each other. "Like, _the_ Shinichi Kudo? The guy who died organizing that huge international crime bust a few years ago?"

" _That's the one. Maybe because of Kudo, something happened to his cousin? I don't know, man. I'm starting to think we're in over our heads on this one,"_ Tucker said.

"We'll still keep an eye on him just in case. It's just...none of this adds up. At all," Sam piped up. "But we can't do anything else till tomorrow, so let's all call it a night. See you at school, Tucker."

Brief goodbyes said, Danny and Sam stepped out of the alleyway. Danny wasn't really quite sure what to think, to be honest. Maybe Tucker was right. As they skirted around Conan's apartment building, Danny's ghost sense went off, but there was no ghost to be found.

The next day, the tables turned (Danny couldn't help but think) as Team Phantom all kept close watch on Conan. He seemed to immediately pick up on this, but kept up the friendly face. It seemed even more forced than usual, though, and not for the first time, Danny wondered just what it was that Conan even wanted from him. Simple curiosity? Doubtful. Especially since he was apparently connected to Shinichi Kudo—though, when he thought about it, Conan looked a lot like him. Granted, he had only been ten the last time he'd seen Kudo's picture, but if the comparison had been brought up before, he's sooner guess brothers than cousins.

Then Danny's ghost sense went off, because of course it did in the middle of badly needed test review. He inwardly groaned as his hand shot up, pausing at the sound of movement behind him at the same time. He turned to see Conan's hand up as well, and they stared at each other for a moment. Had Conan seen his ghost sense? Or was it something else? Conan was usually so composed, but Danny could see that the other boy was radiating fear. He looked tight like a spring, ready to move to action at any second.

Mr. Lancer cleared his throat. "Mr. Fenton, let me guess: you want to go to the bathroom?"

Danny silently nodded.

"Mr. Edogawa, you too?"

Another nod. Sighing, Mr. Lancer waved his hand towards the door. "Fine. Go."

Both Danny and Conan leapt out of their seats, both keeping one eye on the other, as they made a beeline for the exit. In the hallway, Danny watched Conan run in the opposite direction of the bathroom, and he briefly considered following. But, there was a ghost to take care of. Danny headed to the actual bathroom to change into his ghost form undetected, freezing at the sight in front of him. Someone had smashed the mirror and a streak of dried blood stuck to the wall. Danny held his breath and inspected the stalls to see if the ghost was here—probably not with no ghost sense, but Spectra had found a way to hide her ghostliness, right? He figured it was worth checking out.

To avoid making noise, Danny floated just barely off the ground as he tentatively peeked in each open stall. One was covered in black Xs that became increasingly faded as they moved across the stalls. This didn't really _look_ like the work of a ghost; stuff touched by ghosts was usually burnt. But who else would do something like this?

 _I don't have time to worry about this,_ Danny thought. If the ghost wasn't going to come to him, he'd just have to find it himself.

Danny switched forms and phased through the ceiling and the other floors of the school to get to the roof. Rising further to get a better view of Amity, it seemed like things were pretty okay? There was no obvious threat, no green or blue figure loudly announcing their intentions to the public, no running or screaming. Amity, for once, was just having a normal day. So why had his ghost sense gone off?

Some movement in the corner of his eye caught his attention, and he looked down to see Conan stealthily following someone in a black trench coat. He narrowed his eyes and turned invisible, flying down to get a closer look. And—oh. Danny did a double take. The trench coat guy had no face! It was just a white mass with red eyes wearing round glasses. Well, guess he'd found the ghost after all. He watched as the ghost started to morph their face (which, in Danny's humble opinion, was _super_ freaky) into...Shinichi Kudo's…?

The ghost led Conan into an alleyway, and Danny silently prepared an ectoblast in his palm in case they became hostile. The ghost glided to the wall at the back of the alley, turning around sharply to face Conan, trailing behind with one hand under his jacket, presumably where he had hidden his gun (which still had Danny reeling, honestly). Danny saw the veiled fear he'd seen earlier evolve into full on terror. Conan stumbled backwards and fell, tearing his gun out of its hiding place as soon as he hit the ground and pointing it at the trench coat ghost.

"Who are you? Vermouth?" he snarled, steady grip on the handgun. "Why are you disguised as...what do you want?"

The ghost tilted his head. "What? No more response for a blast from the past?"

"I'll ask again," Conan said coldly. "Who are you and what do you want?"

"I just want to ask you a question. You're the silver bullet, aren't you?"

Conan's grip on the gun tightened ever so slightly as he shifted his weight. "I don't know what you're talking about. Now leave me alone before I shoot."

"Don't pretend. It's unbecoming. I can read your every move, and you know _exactly_ what I'm talking about." "Kudo's" lips turned up in a cruel smile. "Good to know."

"I'm not—"

"You've already told us everything. I know who you are."

"Us?" Without warning, Conan shifted the gun a little to the left, and his finger pressed down on the trigger. An explosive sound rang out. Danny could hear the sharp inhale when the bullet went straight through the ghost's shoulder and bounced off the bricks, falling to the ground with a soft _clink._

Danny, figuring that that was enough, opted to let loose the charged ectoblast straight into "Kudo's" chest. The ghost slammed into the graffitied wall behind it and morphed back into the faceless creature from before. Conan pushed himself off the ground and scuttled backwards, watching with wide eyes the scene that unfolded before him. Danny landed on the ground and lit up his hand with more ectoplasm. While the ghost sat there, stunned from the surprise attack, he marched up to it and socked it in the jaw.

"Hey, hey, hey! What's this all about?" the ghost demanded as he floated upright with his arms crossed.

"That seemed like an awfully tense situation to me," Danny replied, frowning as he accidentally dropped his invisibility. "I couldn't _not_ step in, not when you could have attacked him."

"Who said anything about attacking? What are you, a cop? Besides," he came forward and jabbed a finger into Danny's chest, "I'm not here for fun. I was just doing what _she—"_

He was cut off from another ectoblast coming from an invisible source, nailing him in the face and making him fall over again. Danny and Conan both slipped into a defensive stance, but nobody came. Whoever it was had gone. Somehow, Danny didn't think that was a good thing. When he turned back around to deal with the trench coat ghost, he too had vanished, leaving Danny and Conan alone in the alley. Awkward silence.

"How?" asked Conan as he eyed Danny's hand from a safe distance. "Who are you really, Danny?"

Danny sighed. _Keep calm._ He supposed there wasn't really much of a way around this if Conan could really see through him that easily. "I could ask the same of you."

Conan stiffened.

"Look," Danny put a hand on his hip. "That's Danny _Phantom_ to you. You want answers? Fine. But I want answers from you too. We've been looking into your history, and things don't come together like they should. I don't trust you, and I'm sure you don't trust me. But if we're going to do this, you need to promise me that you won't use anything against me."

Conan stared at him calculatedly for a moment. He was breathing hard, like he was trying desperately to keep his composure. "I would never jeopardize your safety. If we agree to a truce, you have to swear you won't use anything against me either. I don't have to answer everything, and if I think it's a trap at any point, I leave, no questions asked. I won't hesitate to use force if you try to stop me from leaving. Deal?"

Danny stuck out a gloved hand. "Deal. Shake on it."

"Fine." Conan cautiously reached out and took it, giving it a firm shake.

Danny turned invisible and flew out of the alley to head back to school. He glanced over his shoulder to see Conan collapsed on his knees, clutching his arms. Danny really, really hoped he wasn't making a huge mistake here.

* * *

Gin looked around and pulled his hat lower over his eyes as he stepped into the bar. All sorts bustled about, creating a cacophony of talking and laughing and clinking and shouting. The wooden bar looked sticky with spilled alcohol and sweat, sitting beneath the cigarette smoke swirling around the room. The lights overhead were rather dim; all the better to conduct business. Gin pushed past a drunk couple pressed up against the wall and headed over towards the bartender, waiting patiently on the metal stool.

"What can I get you, mate?" the bartender asked, wiping down a glass with practiced swiftness before resting his elbow on the counter in front of Gin.

"Give me a Manhattan," Gin grunted. "I'm here on business."

The bartender smiled slyly. "Oh, I see. Right this way then."

The bartender led Gin to a worn navy blue curtain, which he pushed aside to reveal a two-person booth with ratty leather seats and a spotless table. It was hardly the nicest meeting place in the world, but Gin had done worse. Especially since that Organization information had been leaked. Gin tightened his fist. He still hadn't found out who it was, but he would make them pay dearly someday.

The bartender came back shortly with his Manhattan, and Gin lit a cigarette to pass the time while he waited. His client was late. Gin did not like waiting.

Finally, a woman with red hair in a deep red suit pushed back the curtain and sat down across from Gin. She folded her hands on the table with a cheery smile on her face.

"Well?" Gin asked. "What's the job?"

She laughed. "I suppose it's less of a formal job and more of a proposition. I think you and I can help each other."

Gin eyed her warily as he sat up straighter in his seat. "What makes you say that?"

"I know who you are," the woman sang as she leaned forward. "You're from the Organization. I—"

Gin whipped out his gun and pointed it straight at her head before she could say anything else. "How the hell do you know that?" he growled.

Unfazed, the woman continued. "Now, now, let's not get hasty, dear. Silly thing won't work on me anyways. I used to be a member of the Organization myself back in the 80s, you know. Pandora project. Good times, yeah? Now stop being such a drama queen. Let's put away that gun and listen to me for a minute."

Lowering his gun but keeping a ready grip on it, Gin leaned back again. "Go on."

"Ah, that's what I like to hear! I have information I'm sure you're keen on acquiring. You want to know who managed to dismantle the Organization, don't you?"

All right, now she had Gin's attention. Narrowing his eyes, he took a sip of his Manhattan. "Stop beating around the bush. What do you want?"

The woman's grin spread wider as a shadow fell across her face, a sinister glint in her eye. "If we're going to be partners, let me first introduce myself. My name is Penelope Spectra. Let me explain to you the amazing concept of ghosts."

* * *

 **I'm sure the Japanese is janky as hell, 'cause all I did was stick Conan's dialogue from the last chapter into Google Translate and change the "watashi" to "boku" so sorry about that. Hope it's not too atrocious.**

 **Things are happening!**

 **Fun fact: that alley scene, although tweaked from what I originally imagined, was the first scene I came up with when the idea for this story was still in its baby stage.**


	8. Chapter 8

Part of Conan's brain told him that he should probably get up and go back to school after sitting there for who knows how long, but the other part just wanted to say "screw it" and go home. In the past, Conan had considered himself very rational. He was starting to think this maybe wasn't the most accurate assessment when faced with things with stakes higher than there were words for. He wasn't really sure how long he sat there on the grimy pavement hugging himself, not trusting himself to rejoin society. His palms were still sweaty and quivering and his heart still raced from the adrenaline. The sight of his sixteen year old face made him want to throw up. That was a life that was gone, slipped through his fingers just like that, no matter how desperately he wanted it. This was reality and he had to suck it up and accept it already. After all, the whole thing was his fault, wasn't it? A result of a childish sense of invincibility.

Conan's identity was at risk, Gin was still out there somewhere, as well as whoever—or whatever—that was that had imitated his (not his! Kudo Shinichi's) face, and Jodie-san was definitely going to kill him when she found out about the deal he had struck with Fenton. He had hoped to investigate Amity Park discreetly, but apparently every plan he put into place was going to go awry. One wrong move and everything he'd worked for for the last eight years could all fall apart into an irreparable mess that would continue to get more and more people killed or worse. Clenching his fist, he scooted backwards to lean against the wall, and rested his forehead on his bent knees.

How had the situation gotten so out of hand so quickly? Conan sincerely hoped that his intuition about Fenton and his friends was right, and that they didn't mean any harm. Even if he took the whole Kudo Shinichi debacle out of the equation, if his affiliation with the FBI got into the wrong hands, it could be game over for him. After all, he was an easy target; just some scrawny high schooler who was too curious for his own good. God, couldn't he do _anything_ without having to look over his shoulder? Would the nightmare that had become his life ever end?

All he could really do now was pray that he wasn't making the biggest mistake of his life.

"Ku—Conaaaaaaaaaaan!"

That voice…there was no way. Conan looked up to see a very familiar figure shoving money in a frazzled-looking taxi driver's face before jogging up to him. "Hattori? What the—"

"Woah! You look terrible," Hattori cut him off, crouching down to inspect his face. "Have you been getting enough sleep? I bet you've been living on coffee. Sheesh. I leave you alone for five minutes and the first thing you do is drop any self care habits that the rest of us had to pull teeth to get in you!"

Conan sighed in mock annoyance, his best friend's presence was already lifting his spirits. It had been a long time. He shook his head with a dry chuckle; he was well aware of the grim state of his lifestyle. Constant, life-threatening events that cause massive amounts of stress will do that. "What are you even doing here?" he asked.

"Well, I know we haven't talked in a while since we've both been crazy busy, but I'm moving up in the world. I recently completed my training and got full Interpol agent status." Hattori stood back up with a wide grin on his face. It dropped as he lowered his voice. "I insisted that I should be the one to come help on this case since I was the one with the most experience dealing with them, and I was front and center helping you during the takedown. I've hardly even seen you at all since then." His brows knitted together in concern. "I know things have been rough for ya, but are you okay? After everything?"

Conan frowned. People needed to stop feeling like they had to walk on eggshells around him. "I'm fine. I've been keeping busy with work. But we shouldn't talk about this here."

"Fair enough. Show me where your apartment is?" Hattori offered a hand to help Conan up, and taking it, his eyes lingering guiltily over the empty left jacket sleeve for just a moment. The familiar cold feeling returned to chest from the time spent in the hospital four years ago, and Conan shook it off. He couldn't dwell on this right now.

Conan sighed heavily. "Hattori, as much as I'd love to go home and get you up to speed on the case, I have to finish the school day first. And I might get detention 'cause I asked to go to the bathroom and I've been gone for a while."

"I'll walk with you there," Hattori offered.

Brushing off his jeans, Conan motioned for Hattori to follow. As glad as he was to see his best friend again, his mind still turned fretfully at the dangerous game he was playing. Maybe he should bring someone with him…? He definitely didn't want to reveal more than he had to in order to make this truce work, but he also wanted backup if things went south. Bringing an FBI agent probably wouldn't work since what he was doing was really, _really_ against the rules of the mission. He needed someone who was a little more flexible when it came to these matters and that would be one Hattori Heiji. Perfect timing. Conan promptly arranged for Hattori to come get him after school so they could work out a plan with a hurried "I'll explain later."

After getting back, he parted ways with Hattori and surprisingly avoided detention (he kind of thought Lancer was being soft on him there because he was still a new student), getting there just in time for the bell for next period. Fenton and his friends stopped Conan in the hallway by his dented, peeling locker, the atmosphere immediately turning slightly hostile.

"After school. Where should we meet up for this supposed Q and A?" Fenton's goth friend asked, shooting a sour look at Fenton.

"I was going to ask you the same thing." Picking at his sleeves, Conan contemplated where would be the safest place. Would it be too much of a risk to have them to his apartment or would that make it safer since it was his turf? Or would it be better to have it somewhere open but secretive?

At the lack of response, Fenton hesitantly said, "Well, if we can avoid my parents, my house should be good."

Conan raised his eyebrows. An unexpected suggestion, but at the same time it gave him more of an opportunity to study the Fenton house. It could work.

"Fine by me," Conan agreed. "I'm assuming all three of you will be there?" Affirmative nods. "All right, well I'm also going to bring someone. And that's non-negotiable, we're not doing a three on one situation. And he can help if…" Images of the organization storming the house flooded Conan's mind. "If anything unexpected happens."

Fenton's other friend looked up from his PDA. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"It _means_ that there could be a situation. We should all be careful." If Fenton really was a target for somebody, he didn't want to take any chances with unpreparedness.

All three of them looked at each other. "Okay," Fenton said slowly. "Come to my house at 7:30 this evening and we'll talk. Peacefully," he glanced at his friends and back at Conan.

They went to their respective next classes and the rest of the school day passed by rather uneventfully. Conan had a knot in his stomach the whole time, worrying endlessly about all the ways that this meeting could go wrong. If all went well, Fenton and the others would walk away none the wiser as to his true identity and purpose, but if he let a single thing slip...the consequences could be disastrous. Would be disastrous.

Before he knew it, the last bell of the day rang and he found himself wading through the swarm of teenagers to get through the front door of the school. Hattori was leaning against the big leafy oak tree around the side of the building texting someone on his phone. He looked up as Conan approached and slipped it into his pocket, striding to meet him in the middle. As he stopped, he tilted his head. "Are you going to tell me what all this is about now?"

"Yep." Conan put his hands in his pockets and began the route home. "But on the way, I want to know what you've been up to. I know I get really focused on work."

"That's the understatement of the century." Hattori, in typical Hattori fashion, reached out and ruffled Conan's hair. "Make some time for the rest of us every once in a while, yeah?" He lowered his volume. "Though honestly, I've also been pretty much just doing things for work lately. Solved some murders, got a promotion, came here to coordinate the detention and arrest of _him,_ and help you in any way I can. Have you talked to Ran-san at all lately?"

Conan sighed, patting down his hair in a half-hearted attempt to fix it. "I haven't really talked to her since the truth came out. Things were awkward, and while she understood why I did it, she was really unhappy about all the lies that kept piling up over the years. And I certainly don't blame her. I kept her hopes up for so long that it was all going to work out, and then...it just didn't, and we both knew it never would after the takedown. So we stopped pretending."

"Maybe you should try calling her again. I'm sure she'd love to hear from you. You guys used to be so close. I hate to see that waste away because you won't talk to each other."

Conan looked at him over his glasses. "It took you and Kazuha-chan how many years to actually communicate enough to start dating?"

"Hey!" Hattori protested, a small blush coloring his cheeks. "That's totally different! Besides, it's all water under the bridge now! And we're still friends, in any case, not this whole thing you have going on with Ran-san. You should try, anyway. You don't have to cut everyone off just because of what happened."

Conan grunted in response, and the walk lapsed into silence. Truth be told, he'd often thought about trying to reestablish a relationship as friends after the Organization headquarters had burned down, but between the sheer exhaustion of spending every waking moment tracking down scattered members and the bad terms that they'd parted on, he'd just never been able to bring himself to take that step. Maybe he should reach out.

As soon as the pair stopped in front of the apartment building, Conan pushed all thoughts of home out of his mind and led Hattori through the wood-paneled hallway to his own room, Hattori frowning at the various items strewn around the room haphazardly.

Conan decided to ignore this and sat down, saying, "Okay, so I know you've been told about the possible Organization rebuild effort. There's...there's been some complications since then." He went on to explain the Penelope Spectra and Danny Fenton ordeals in a somber tone of voice.

Hattori gave a low whistle when Conan had finished. "That's even worse than I expected."

"Bottom line," Conan added, "I agreed to a truce with Fenton and I'm meeting him at 7:30 and I want you to come with me for backup. Please."

Hattori went quiet and a serious expression flickered across his face. "You know I will."

Conan couldn't help but be reminded of the night before the takedown, when he had asked Hattori to help him. Then, everything had been on the line and it was the commitment of a lifetime for his friend to make, but he had done it and paid the price.

Hattori didn't take agreements lightly anymore.

"It's settled then," Conan said, leaning back into the sofa.

The time to leave came in the blink of an eye and they set out, both with their guns concealed in their jackets, arriving at the Fenton house right on time. Fenton was already waiting outside on the step, and ushered him inside and up the stairs (some of which had a mysterious goop stuck on them that Conan wanted to study) into his bedroom.

"Sam, Tucker, it's time" Fenton said as he shut the door behind him, nodding at each of them as he said their names.

The goth friend, Sam, stepped forward to face Conan, and gestured towards Hattori. "Who is this?"

"Insurance," Hattori replied coolly, grabbing Conan's sleeve and dragging him out of the doorway.

Crossing her arms, Sam nodded and sat down on Fenton's bed. "Care to tell us why and how you were involved in a million and one murders in the nineties?"

Hattori and Conan exchanged glances. They must have done some pretty serious digging to actually translate archived Japanese newspapers. That certainly did not bode well. Well, he _had_ gone into this knowing he would have to give up a little personal information he'd rather avoid.

"Back in Japan," Conan began slowly, carefully choosing each word, "I lived with the detective Mouri Kogoro for a few years. I tagged along on all his cases, and sometimes I noticed things that turned out to be important for that particular murder."

Hattori coughed, covering up a snort, and Fenton, Sam, and Tucker all looked positively incredulous.

"But you were six when you started doing this, right?" Fenton asked, absently scratching his head. "People let you come along on murder cases?"

Conan shrugged nonchalantly. "Ojisan isn't a terribly responsible guardian."

"Okay, but _murder_? Seriously?"

"Yep. Now, my turn. What's with the hair and costume change?"

Shifting uncomfortably, Fenton broke eye contact and stared at the ratty blue carpet, almost with an air of resignation about him. "You haven't figured it out?"

"No? Am I missing something obvious?" Conan wracked his brain for anything he'd heard that remotely resembled the appearance changes. "Both you and your sister said 'Danny Phantom,' but that doesn't mean a whole lot to me. It sounds like a badly thought out alias for an alter ego."

"Hey!" Fenton raised a fist indignantly. "It is _not_ badly thought out!"

Hattori's very sharp elbow connected with Conan's side, and he turned to glare at the culprit. Mouthing "don't provoke them," he cleared his throat. "I think what my partner here means to say is just that it's strange. It _is_ a different identity? Why make one in the first place?"

"We also have the right not to answer stuff," Tucker piped in.

Fenton looked tired. "I don't know how much good that'll do, Tuck. Researching Phantom isn't exactly hard. But Conan, can you at least tell me why you have a freakin' _gun_? Does it have something to do with Shinichi Kudo?"

"That's—" began Conan, taking a sharp breath, but was cut off by a gasp from Fenton, a very faint blue mist coming out of his mouth. What?

Fenton immediately shifted his posture, one that Conan recognized as a stance for hand-to-hand combat, pushing Hattori out of the way to see out the window, only to be knocked back by...glowing green humanoid things? Suspended in the air as if by magic, they moaned hauntingly and fixed their otherworldly stitched gazes on him. Fenton uncharacteristically cursed and shouted over his shoulder, "This gets out to no one, understand?"

Everything seeming to fall into slow motion, a brilliant white ring appeared around Fenton's waist, illuminating the room with a dazzling light. His clothes disappeared like they were melting away as they were replaced with the familiar black and white suit. His hair changed color as the ring went further up and dissipated into thin air. Standing before him was Danny Phantom, he presumed. And like before, Conan was completely stumped as how he could achieve that effect.

Fenton's hand appeared to catch on fire with some kind of green energy, which he shot out of his hand at the humanoid figures. One cumbled and faded away into nothing, while the other one was left with a gaping hole in the middle of its chest that it closed with a nauseating _squelch_ like nothing had even happened.

Conan reached for his gun, pausing and fumbling to awkwardly catch another gun that someone had tossed his way. He looked up to see Sam pointing the same type at the humanoid things. "Don't bother," she grunted between shots. "These are ghosts. Use ghost weapons like a sensible person." She proceeded to toss another one towards Hattori (who looked just as startled as Conan felt).

"Ghosts?" Hattori asked, opting not to question the gun business.

"Where have _you_ been? You live in Amity Park, remember?" Sam retorted. She rolled out of the way (Poor Fenton's wall did not have this same luxury, and debris spilled out onto the floor and knocked over the lamp on the bedside table) as one of the figures charged her and made a beeline for the bed, practically somersaulting over the mattress before taking down another ghost by shooting it through the stomach.

Conan figured this wasn't the time to question people who obviously knew what they were doing and raised the peculiar round silver gun to face one of the 'ghosts,' as Sam had said. As he pulled the trigger, a similar neon green beam came out and hit the nearest of the ghosts. Okay, so these did work, but what exactly was in them? What exactly were these beings? They couldn't really be ghosts, could they?

Conan was totally on the verge of insanity. Ghosts?

He shifted the gun's aim to hit the one currently attacking Tucker, pausing at the horrified expression on the boy's face. His eyes were glued to something behind Conan. A stone settled in Conan's stomach as he turned around to come face to face with one of the ghosts. It raised an arm and he flinched, prepared for the worst. He opened one eye with trepidation just in time to see some sort of powder falling around him.

The world around him quickly dissolved into blackness.

* * *

 **Enter Hattori Heiji! I've been excited to bring him in for a while!**

 **Things have been really crazy for me and will continue to be so for a while as I'm preparing to move overseas, but I will do my best to keep the updates coming. Thank you all so so much for the support! You're all wonderful :D**

 **The DP timeline was already out of order but this is really, really out of order, but fret not, things will be adjusted to fit a season 1 setting.**


	9. Chapter 9

Not a thing in the world was wrong to Daniel Jack Fenton. How could anything possibly be wrong? All of a sudden, he was passing his classes with flying colors (an A+ on a science test! He could hardly believe his eyes), was the star of the football team, was Sam's _boyfriend_ , and considered the coolest guy around. The entire cafeteria cheered him on as he effortlessly defeated a ghost, making him blush a bit. Praise was not something he was terribly accustomed to with his…less than stellar reputation. Sitting back down to eat his actually-not-gross cafeteria lunch, Sam settled beside him and leaned into his shoulder. It was almost like living a dream, how perfect it was.

Hey, wait a minute.

Sam came closer and closer, lips puckered out like…and Danny, without even thinking, tipped forward, doing the same. This couldn't be real; they had almost connected when—

"Gah!" Danny jolted awake, and something on his head crackled before splitting apart and falling uselessly on the ground beside him. He rubbed his head absently, taking in the surroundings that were definitely not home, or even Amity Park for that matter. The familiar yet eerie swirling green atmosphere closed in around him as he got his bearings enough to stand up unsteadily on the isolated piece of floating rock.

 _Super,_ he thought, looking around for any indication of where exactly in the Ghost Zone he was. How had he gotten here anyway? Danny didn't exactly make a habit of getting blackout drunk and waking up in the Ghost Zone. Or of putting on weird helmets (or at least ones that weren't made by his parents, he supposed), so someone must have put him there, but who? Why put him to sleep? Suddenly, a hazy recollection of the fight with the green ghosts with stitched eyes came to him; sheesh, they must have really done a number on him. He absently rubbed the crown of his head as he recalled the silhouette of another ghost. One who looked far more menacing, like he was eating up the scene in front of him ravenously.

Pushing these thoughts aside, Danny decided that presently, he should focus on finding the Fenton Ghost Portal. After all, he wasn't really any good to anybody sitting out in the middle of nowhere. A scan of the area yielded no familiar lair doors or rock formations, which wasn't great, but he could handle it. Danny took off and just picked a direction, just really, really hoping that he wasn't lost. He could already tell that this day was going to suck massively, and he didn't want to think far ahead enough to have a plan if he really was stuck in the middle of nowhere.

About twenty minutes in, Danny breathed a sigh of relief as he spotted a door that he knew, changing course to follow the pathway all the way to the break in the whirling pattern of the green atmosphere. The lighter green "clouds" moved and rippled against the normal flow in one octagonal spot—his parents' ghost portal. Stepping through, he glanced around for any signs of his parents or Jazz. A half-finished invention with open wires sat on a metal table covered in scorch marks, a blowtorch discarded beside it haphazardly. Danny furrowed his brows. Maybe his parents were reckless in every other regard, but they'd be damned if they didn't take lab safety seriously. He strained his ears for anything in the house, but all was quiet. Too quiet. He hurried up the stairs with the gut feeling that something was terribly wrong.

"Mom? Dad? Jazz?" he called, halting as he peered into his parents' rooms. Similar to his own situation, they lay on their bed with the alien helmets on, with no sound but the hum of electricity. Danny rushed up to them and tried to pry the helmets off, only to jump back at the harsh shock that coursed through his hand. Hmm. That wasn't good. But Danny was totally going to be calm about this. Totally.

Shoving down impending panic, he found Jazz the same way, and, perhaps a little hastily, tried to get the helmet off of her too. No such luck. More such pain. Okay, so maybe he needed a plan B, but what that was exactly, he had no idea.

Next stop: Ops Center. With the mountains of security around Fentonworks, Danny figured there was bound to be _something_ on the security cameras. The worn swivel chair sat in front of the mainframe computer, and putting a hand on the back, Danny pulled it back and plopped down on the cushion as he input the password. Feeds from the numerous cameras popped up on the huge monitor all at once, all piled one on top of the other. Danny pressed his lips together and closed out of various windows until he found the lab feed, his finger hitting the play button.

The white timestamp in the bottom left corner of the screen read 19:50 when the same green ghosts from the previous night snuck up first on his dad, who had been checking readings on the portal. Before he even knew they were there, they had dowsed him in a shimmering powder and he was out cold. The silhouette from his memory appeared in full view, a ghost that looked like space itself with twisted violet horns on its head and solid red eyes, who watched as his mom was put to sleep the same way before dematerializing. The video went to static after that, sending a chill down Danny's spine. Whoever he was dealing with, they were efficient.

As soon as Danny phased out of the Ops Center and outside, goosebumps covered his limbs, and not just because of the cold winter air. Amity Park had suddenly become a ghost town (haha). It was completely deserted, not a single soul in sight. He landed and proceeded lightly on foot, looking through shop windows and discovering the same helmets on cashiers slumped over the counters or customers prone on the floors. He hightailed it to Sam's house, who was in the same situation, and then Tucker's—still no dice. What in the world had happened?

 _Oh God,_ Danny thought anxiously as he phased back outside. Maybe Tucker would have known how to hack into the helmets, or maybe Sam would have figured out some clue left behind by the culprits, but as it was, it was just Danny. He didn't do solo. What was he supposed to do now? He was just the guy who threw the punches and carried the thermos!

The minute Danny dared venture out into the street, the ol' Fenton luck kicked in and the green ghosts poured out of the nearby alleyways, breaking the unnatural silence with a booming chorus of moans. Danny hadn't even blinked before two of them seized his arms with an iron grip and dragged him before the space-y ghost, who he assumed must be commanding the others.

"Who are you?" he shouted, struggling to escape. "Why did you put everyone to sleep?"

The luminescent red eyes stared down at him unimpressed. "I am Nocturn," he growled, his voice taking on an almost demonic quality. "I am the ghost of sleep. And who are you supposed to be? Some sort of half-breed?"

Danny narrowed his eyes. "And what about it? If you don't wake everyone up right now—"

"Cute, but I'm not in the mood," Nocturn interrupted disdainfully. "Though I am almost impressed that you managed to wake up and come back. But not to worry; my Sleepwalkers will have you back asleep in just a moment. This time," a cruel smile appeared on his face, "it will be much deeper. Permanent."

Eyes widening, Danny began to struggle harder, desperately trying to escape the "Sleepwalkers" that just wouldn't budgeno matter _what_ he did. He charged extra-hot ectoblasts in both hands until the hands of his captors began to crumble, and the Sleepwalkers yelped and let go, the rest of their bodies decomposing into a pile of nothing.

"Um, ew," muttered Danny. He turned to face Nocturn, ectoblasts at the ready to throw. "Sorry, buddy," he taunted. "But I think it's lights out time for you!"

Nocturn cocked his head to the side and lazily raised a hand. "Sleepwalkers, form," he called with a snap of his fingers.

Hordes of Sleepwalkers cropped up, a never-ending stream that bore down upon him with the ferocity of a pack of velociraptors. Danny gritted his teeth and sent wave after wave up into the air with ectoblasts, but to no avail. Nocturn simply stood at the side and called more like it was some game. Chancing to direct fire away from the Sleepwalkers, Danny managed to catch Nocturn off guard and shoot straight through his form. The mildly amused look on his face instantly soured as he closed up the gaping hole and sped towards Danny.

 _Crap crap crap crap crap._

Danny blasted away the Sleepwalkers above him and rose off the ground to thrust both hands forward and put all his energy into weakening Nocturn. Though Danny kept getting pushed backwards, it was working. Nocturn became slower in closing the holes and looked strained before finally coming to a stop. "I am weakened now, but I will return," he threatened, disappearing from view.

Danny didn't need to be told twice to get the heck out of Dodge. Tuck's place was closest, and it wasn't long before Danny was pacing apprehensively in front of his friend's sleeping form. How to get the helmet off was the question that continued to perplex him—if he couldn't touch it, couldn't try to melt it off, how could he do anything? His own helmet had broken when he'd woken up, but how would he go about that?

Danny silently went through his powers to try and figure out if _something_ would help. Ectoblasts? Nope. Intangibility? The darn things were ghost proof. Overshadowing? A lightbulb lit up. Hey…maybe if he overshadowed Tucker, he could shock him in his dream? It was worth a shot. And, he didn't really have a better idea. He took a breath and dived into Tucker's chest, suddenly finding himself in a huge mansion with fountains and luxury cars practically lining the property. And were those solid gold shutters? Nice. Tuck was classy, even in his sleep. He peeked inside to find Tucker sitting on a couch with a Star Wilkins on either side of him.

"Janitor, you missed a spot," Tucker said in a sing-song tone, pointing to a puddle of water on the floor by the couch.

The janitor looked up tiredly, and Danny frowned as he saw who it was. The left Star leaned in for a kiss, and Danny replaced the one on the other side, crossing his arms and waiting for Tucker to turn around. "Really, Tuck? I'm the janitor?"

That did it. Danny was pushed out of Tucker as he woke up with a yelp. And…success! The helmet broke off his head and fell in a heap on the floor beside his bed.

Danny lent a hand. "We've got a situation. I'll explain on the way to Sam's." He scowled. "And I don't do windows."

Tucker at least had the grace to look a bit sheepish. When they got to the Manson place, in all its 1950s floral print glory, Danny left to Tucker to his own devices, jumping straight in. It was the Casper High cafeteria again, and he could see himself sitting at the same table from his own dream. Weird. His jaw hung open as Sam walked up in the same varsity jacket and sat down beside Danny with the same…"girlfriend look." Danny didn't know whether to be flattered or creeped out at the similarity. Good thing he had a job to do to distract him.

He looked around and spotted Dash standing near the table with a lovey expression that Danny was sure he wouldn't be caught dead wearing in real life, and a plan formulated in his mind. He turned intangible and overshadowed dream Dash, inwardly cackling at what the look on Sam's face was going to be. "Hey!" he shouted. "I'm Danny Phantom!" The familiar white rings appeared around his unfamiliar waist, and Sam nearly fell out of her seat, a look of pure horror coming over her face. One way ticket back to the real word.

The helmet cracking and bursting apart, Sam bolted upright and looked around wildly. "What are you two doing here?" she demanded.

Danny sighed. "Those ghosts we fought last night? They're called Sleepwalkers. They put the whole town to sleep for this guy called Nocturn, who can apparently summon like, a million armies of them. And now we have to take him down, I guess. Woohoo."

"And I think I can help with that!" Tucker smiled, pointing to the junkpile that currently sat on Sam's pillow. "I managed to track the signal that Sam's helmet was sending while she was asleep, and it's going to the mattress factory on Barry Lane. My guess is that this 'Nocturn' has some sort of machine set up that converts dreams into energy. I can't really think of what else the 'ghost of sleep' might do anyway." He rolled his eyes. "Twenty bucks says that he wants to take over Amity Park, or the world, or some kind of place."

No one took the bet.

Danny nodded. "All right, then I guess we'll head there."

"Wait," said Sam, holding up a hand. "We might want backup. If this guy can continually bring in those Sleepwalker things, I don't know if the three of us are going to be enough. If Tucker is going to disable this machine, assuming there is one, he's going to need some pretty hefty cover."

"Are you suggesting who I think you're suggesting?" Danny quirked an eyebrow incredulously.

"Do you have a better idea?" Sam retorted. "I know he's not ideal, but look at this my way; the guy obviously has some weapons training to carry around a pistol, and I saw him last night. He could handle himself when a Fentonblaster was put into his hands. And, well, he already saw you transform and didn't start gunning for you. As much as I still have reservations about him, I think that after watching him help us fend off the Sleepwalkers, that maybe he can be helpful to us."

"But he's creepy," Danny complained. "He came to my house to _study_ me!"

Shoving his PDA in his pocket, Tucker strode towards the door. "Okay, yeah, that's not great, but I'm with Sam on this. I don't want to die trying to do something because I don't have enough cover. I think Conan is our best option—anyone else puts your identity more at risk. So let's hurry up and do this already. He moved Sam and me to our beds, so I guess he's at his own house?"

"I guess." Well, majority rules. Danny followed Tucker down the stairs and out into the road. The trio stuck to the shadows and alleyways as they made their way back to Conan's apartment. Sam pushed open the slightly ajar door, and as they entered, the same floorboard from before creaked under their feet. Conan's gun sat in the middle of the floor, a few feet away from another open door. They walked in, and there he was, lying in bed, but this was different. Everyone else Danny had seen had looked peaceful, but Conan tossed and turned, his eyes squeezed shut like he was bracing himself for something. The "insurance" he'd brought with him had been tossed on the floor next to the bed. Danny also couldn't help but notice that Conan's room was just bizarre. There was no trace of his personality at all; it was just a standard solid color bed and dresser set up. Not a single CD or poster or anything.

"What's wrong with him?" asked Tucker. "Everyone else was having a good dream, but somehow I doubt that's the case."

Parking himself at the side of the bed, Danny switched on intangibility. "I don't know, but nothing to do but hop in, I guess. Hopefully this won't take long."

Danny hadn't known what he expected, but it wasn't this.

It was pitch black, with a faint heartbeat reaching his ears. The ground (if he could call it that) seemed to be damp; his feet sunk into it with every step. He stepped in something sticky, and suddenly, as if a spotlight had been switched on, a figure lying prone on the ground lit up. Danny lifted his boot and froze at the red substance underneath, pooled next to the figure's head. It didn't take a genius to figure out what that was, though it looked abnormally brightly colored. As he crouched down to get a closer look, he realized that this wasn't Conan. This was a younger Shinichi Kudo. This person was taller, looked a little older, had the prominent cowlick he'd seen in the pictures on the news after that place in Japan had gotten stormed, had no glasses. He also seemed…soft in a way that Conan wasn't, though he couldn't explain it.

Kudo cracked one eye open and spotted his boot. "Help me," he whispered hoarsely. "Please, I don't want to die."

Nausea rose up inside of Danny at the last resort, scrambling kind of desperation oozing from Kudo's voice. Before he had a chance to answer, a bloodcurdling scream ripped its way out of Kudo's throat, a chilling sound that echoed into the abyss around them, but no one came to help. He'd heard plenty of screams while fighting ghosts, but this…Kudo really sounded like he was dying. As Kudo curled up, his breathing quickened and the surrounding heartbeat grew louder and faster, becoming deafening, pounding into Danny's skull. Without warning, Danny's chest felt like it was about to tear itself apart, and he started to keel over.

He turned his head back at the sound of shouts behind him and suddenly found himself standing in some kind of public locker facility in the middle of the night, the pain gone as quickly as it had come. A beam of moonlight created a strip of soft light over the old metal doors and the grimy concrete floor. No ordinary person would have been able to pick it up, but he could hear the faint hyperventilation coming from one of the lockers as slow footsteps approached. Danny went invisible and intangible, sticking his head into the locker to find Conan as a little kid huddled in there, eyes wide in terror and a hand clamped over his mouth. Danny sucked in a breath and withdrew, dreading whoever he was hiding from. The smell of smoke hit his nostrils as he watched a man come around the corner dressed in all black, with long silver hair and a cigarette between his teeth. Another man with a stronger jaw in a suit and sunglasses appeared a second later, a gun in his hand. The man with the long hair said something in Japanese to his partner (Danny assumed anyway) and marched up to the lockers, flinging open the doors one by one. Danny held his breath as he started to open the one that held tiny Conan before stopping. The long-haired man looked at him like he could tell he was with an icy stare that Danny was sure he would never forget.

Danny blinked and it was all gone, replaced with a massive fire that sent embers and smoke high into the night sky. Police sirens wailed around him, and people rushed out of the building, carrying dead and wounded. As ambulances sped away, they were replaced with more, but they could still hardly keep up with the rate of injured people exiting the building. Danny looked up and spotted a silhouette racing by the windows on the crumbling fourth floor. When he floated up and phased through the exterior wall to investigate, he found a younger (but older than the last one) Conan wildly throwing open doors and communicating with someone on an earpiece. Charred corpses littered the place, and Danny felt like he was suffocating from all the smoke. Conan didn't look any better, but he forged on. He entered a half-collapsed computer room and punched in the password for the one on the end, and a relieved look crossed his face before being replaced with panic. The screen read: UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS. TERMINATE DATA.

Conan's voice quavered as he asked something and began checking the other computers, really unhealthy-sounding coughs shaking his thin frame. Danny heard a groan from overhead and looked up to see the ceiling start to cave. All he could do was watch as it all came down on Conan. And then, nothing but a shrill ringing in his ears. Danny was back in the weird void from before, but this time, the smell of antiseptic, and voices. So many voices. Everything from screams to laughter, to celebration to loss, it was all there. His vision was bombarded with images of a thousand bodies, their faces in vivid detail and their eyes dull and lifeless. Danny could swear he felt the sensation of a coffin closing around him, but nothing was there.

Danny briefly remembered that he was here to try to shock Conan enough to wake him up, but that seemed a lifetime ago. Sure, this was a dream, but shouldn't all this have shocked him awake long ago? And even so, he was paralyzed with the sheer amount of stimulation his brain was getting right now. Something was seriously, seriously wrong.

Amidst the dissonant noise, one voice rang out louder and clearer than the rest. A woman's voice, but whose it was, he didn't know. "I'm sorry, but we couldn't recover the data…"

The next moment, Danny was sent flying out of Conan and crashed into the wall as the other boy shot upright, breathing heavily. The helmet fell in ruins onto the bedspread. Danny sat against the wall for a moment, trying to calm himself down and processing what he'd just seen. The eyes of the long-haired man seemed to bore into him still. What on earth had happened to Conan? And what was really his connection to Shinichi Kudo? Had he been there when he died?

"…What are you all doing here?" asked Conan, radiating anxiety. His breaths were starting to sink back into a normal rhythm. "What happened last night? And what the hell is this helmet?"

Tucker looked over at Danny slumped against the wall. "You okay, Danny? Too much overshadowing getting to you?"

"Am I okay?" Danny's voice cracked. He wasn't, really, but he couldn't even begin to imagine what Conan had seen to have dreams like that in perfect detail. "Conan, are _you_ okay?"

"What do you mean?"

"I saw your dream."

The color drained from Conan's face. A tense pause.

"And how, exactly, did you do that?" Conan stiffly swung his legs over the side of the bed and stood up, a hand slipping into his pocket. He was looking everywhere but Danny.

Danny sighed and ran a hand through his hair. He was tired and stressed and, add mentally scarred to the list, just wanted this whole Nocturn ordeal to be over. "You want to know what's up with the 'costume change?' Fine!" He threw his hands up in the air in frustration. How plainly was he going to have to spell this out? "You already saw me anyway! You said you would never jeopardize my safety, so I hope you were serious. I'm half-ghost. Which means that I can overshadow, or I guess possess you, but I promise it's not as bad as it sounds—I only do it if I really have to. Anyway, I could see your dream when I overshadowed you, the intention being to shock you awake so you could help us. Hopefully."

Conan blinked. "But ghosts aren't real."

"Do you really believe that after last night? And after the whole Spectra thing?" Sam asked skeptically. "You used the ghost weapon I told you to, didn't you?"

An odd look came over Conan's features as he stared intently at the wall for a long moment. "All right," he conceded. "'When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth,' right? Perhaps, the supernatural is a little more real than I previously thought. Still, whatever they are, they might not be ghosts. Fill me in on the situation and I'll do what I can."

"God, finally! Let's be on the same page. Mostly." Tucker sat down next to Conan on the bed and pulled out his PDA as he told him about Nocturn and the helmet signals. "…And so, if I'm going to disable the machine that I guess we don't technically know exists, but probably does since the signal needs a receiver, I need backup. And you're our best option."

"Backup? He could help," Conan suggested, pointing at the sleeping "insurance" on the floor.

Danny looked down at him and back up at Conan. "Who is he anyway?"

"…A friend."

Sam rolled her eyes. "Yeah, okay, vague much? If you're going to work with us, we're going to have to trust each other. You know about Danny now, so you better not blow this." Danny was eternally grateful at all times that Sam was on his side. "Now, Danny, would you please tell us what was so significant about this dream?"

Danny met Conan's eyes, his brows knitting together in concern. "I think we should hear it from you," he said. "Just what was all that?"

Conan looked down glumly at his hands resting on his lap. "Hattori first."

Danny nodded and turned intangible, entering "Hattori's" dream. He was met with a dull ache in his left arm and a younger Hattori sitting next to Kudo on a couch in a room with a wall of windows and a desk covered in beer cans, a baseball cap casting a shadow over his eyes. They were watching some TV show and laughing when Kudo suddenly went still and clutched his chest much the same way as in Conan's dream. Leaping into motion, Hattori put an arm around his shoulders and got up to lead him somewhere as he supported his weight.

Danny almost wanted to stay and watch, but thought he probably shouldn't beat around the bush anymore. Overshadowing dream Kudo, he looked Hattori dead in the eye and switched to ghost form.

Hattori practically jumped three feet in the air. "なに？The high school kid?"

At least Danny got to return to the real world a little more gracefully this time. Conan wasted no time pulling Hattori aside once he was awake and quietly consulting with him (and presumably catching him up to speed on what was going on). Soon enough, they ceased the rapid whispering and turned to face the others.

"We have a threat to deal with first. Then we'll talk," Conan said. The evasive maneuver, huh? At least it left Danny with something to hold Conan to when they had dealt with Nocturn. "Ah, does anyone have an extra weapon? I dropped the one from last night when I was knocked out."

"Yeah, I gotcha." Sam bent down and produced the Fenton lipstick blaster from her boot, offering it to Conan.

"Are you trying to say something about my appearance?" Conan deadpanned as he took it from her and held it up in front of his face.

Stifling a laugh (Hattori did not do the same, and erupted into a fit of boisterous laughter), Sam waved her arm. "No, no, it's an ectoblaster. You'd be surprised what Danny's parents will invent. In any case, it's good to have on hand since it's a lot less conspicuous than, say, a giant bazooka that gets goop on everything but the ghost."

"Point."

"Okay, people, it's now or never," Tucker declared as he moved towards the door and put his PDA at the ready in his hand. "Let's take down some ghosts!"

Conan assumed his "thinking pose" with his index finger and thumb stuck out and placed over his chin. "I'm still _sure_ there must be a more logical explanation than ghosts. Beings from another dimension, perhaps—"

"Conan, I have a suggestion," Danny said dryly. "Can it. We've got a job to do."

"Hey!" Conan sputtered as he got up to follow everyone else out of the room, muttering something under his breath.

The streets were still deserted, which Danny supposed at least granted easy access to the mattress factory. Even so, no one argued that it was best to keep a low profile until they actually started fighting Nocturn, or, probably more so his Sleepwalkers. The mattress factory looked innocent enough from the outside…if he didn't count the massive energy-slurping antenna on top that looked like a spare part of a UFO.

Danny gawked up at the thing, wondering how he'd managed to get that up without anyone noticing. "Looks like you were right about the machine."

Tucker grinned and held up his PDA like it was an award. "Of course I was right about the machine."

They all entered the factory and crouched behind a tall stack of mattresses to scope out the place. Conan seemed to search every square inch of it calculatedly, and Danny had to admit—it did not look good for them. Nocturn was asleep and shut just inside a large window on the front of the machine. Tubes and wires were plugged into random spots on the wall, and Danny could see blue energy streaking through them towards the main body of the machine. The main problem? Nocturn was enormous! His head was bigger than Danny's everything!

"All right, we've got to do this intelligently," Conan commanded. He suddenly seemed much older, and Danny noticed that Hattori instantly stood at attention. Sam and Tucker unconsciously followed suit. "Tucker, Hattori and will I go with you up to the control panel at the top of that ramp." He pointed to it. We'll escort you up there on either side of you, and after that I'll stay at your back the whole time while Hattori tries to pick off Sleepwalkers from farther away to lighten the load on me. Hattori, come back towards us if you feel like you're going to get overwhelmed." He faced Danny. "Danny, can more than one person go into Nocturn's dream?"

Danny shrugged. "Theoretically? I've never overshadowed with a partner before, but it should be possible."

"All right. You guys know more about this than me or Hattori, so you and Sam will go into Nocturn's dream together and wake him up. It's always best to stick together if we can. The faster you wake him up, the better off we'll be. All good, everyone?"

Everyone nodded in unison and ran out from behind the mattresses. They'd been spotted—Sleepwalkers appeared in droves, already cutting out Conan's and Hattori's work for them as they raced up the ramp towards the antenna. As Danny and Sam sped towards Nocturn, he caught a glimpse of Conan making full use of that lipstick blaster in front of Tucker, who frantically typed away on his PDA. Hattori was at work on the other side of the room with a Fentonblaster, and he too seemed very practiced with a weapon. Well, that worked in their favor so that was fine. Danny had bigger things to worry about right now.

Danny grabbed Sam's hand and turned them both intangible, phasing through the glass and into Nocturn. A whole palace made of gray stone with a huge winding staircase covered swarms of Sleepwalkers appeared before them. They stood behind a rocky overhang on a cliff, not really entirely sure what to do now. Nocturn seemed to be having the time of his afterlife being the king of the world or whatever he was doing on top of the palace.

Before Danny and Sam could formulate a plan, Nocturn sensed their presence and teleported right behind them, a sinister smile on his face. "You really think you can beat me in my own dream? At the height of my power? Go ahead, I want to see you try."

"Challenge accepted," Sam yelled, cranking her Fentonblaster up to full power.

Nocturn yawned mockingly and sent her Fentonblaster up into the hazy purple sky, disappearing from view. Danny and Sam glanced at each other, and Danny began to fire ectoblast after ectoblast, but there was no weakening the ghost this time. And he was starting to tire.

Danny ran over and grabbed Sam's arm. "I think it's time to ditch!"

They could regroup with the others and figure out a plan, and—why wasn't it working? Why couldn't he get them out? Oh no no no. This couldn't be happening! The last thing he needed was to be stuck in this nightmare!

"Going somewhere?" Nocturn laughed. "You're stuck here forever, for me to do what I wish with you."

They were trapped. The Sleepwalkers closed in on all sides, pushing Danny and Sam closer together. Sam put up her fists and Danny put up his own charged with ecto-energy. Soon enough, they were going to be overpowered, but they were not about to go down without a fight.

And then, Tucker, beautiful Tucker, worked his tech genius magic and the army blinked out of existence just like that. Gaining confidence back, Danny smiled and unleashed a flurry of ectoblasts onto Nocturn, who was now powerless to stop it without the incoming flow of dream energy.

And back into the real world they went. Both Conan and Hattori looked exhausted, but poised and ready for anything. Danny supposed that maybe having Conan as an ally was a pretty good idea after all. He was snapped out of his thoughts as the glass on the front of the machine shattered, shards flying out and landing everywhere. Nocturn glided towards them, outrage evident on his face, but it was fine.

Nocturn was tiny.

Danny unclipped the Fenton Thermos from his belt and tapped on it derisively. "Now you're stuck here." He did not bother giving Nocturn the time of day and immediately uncapped the device, letting loose the vacuum beam.

"Is he gone?" Conan shouted as he moved down the ramp with Hattori and Tucker, the lipstick blaster still smoking in his hand.

Danny twisted the cap extra tight and placed it back on his belt. "Yup. All taken care of."

Conan let out a breath he had apparently been holding and tossed the lipstick blaster back towards Sam. "I'm glad everyone is okay. This sort of thing happens often?"

"Not necessarily on this scale, but yeah." Tucker kissed his PDA and stuck it back in his pocket.

That seemed to greatly trouble Conan. He stuck his hands in his pockets and looked at the floor intently. Danny wanted answers about him more than ever.

"And now that it's over," Danny said, "you have some explaining to do, Conan."

* * *

The blonde woman glanced around as she passed through town on her metallic red motorcycle, unsure what to think. The place was completely empty. No one was outside, there were no other drivers, there was nothing. She almost considered turning around and going back, but the message kept her advancing towards the address taped to the handle of her motorcycle. The corners flapped in the wind, but she paid it no mind.

She couldn't fathom how the sender of the message had found her in the first place. She never wore her true face. There shouldn't be any record that she even existed. But here she was, in this little dump of a town, just because of a note on her apartment desk. Still, she was intrigued. New business, new _real_ business, was not something she had ever expected to get again after the Silver Bullet had struck with all his pawns in tow.

Slowing and coming to a stop in front of a brick building with tons of neon signs, and none of them on, she took her helmet off and left it hanging on the handle. The note touched her palm under her glove as she entered. A bar, huh? Seemed awfully public. Not that it mattered, she supposed, if no one was there. And no one was. It was closed. Grabbing a lockpick from her pocket, she made quick work of it.

"Well, I'll be damned," she remarked. Sitting at a booth just inside was an old co-worker. One that she was very surprised to see. "I thought you died, Brandy."

In fact, she was sure that Brandy had died. She'd seen the death record after the Silver Bullet Project was over. Brandy was sporting a new look, with some kind of weird horned hairstyle. Otherwise, she looked almost exactly the same.

Brandy smiled, but her teeth seemed sharper than they should be. "What's to say I didn't?"

* * *

 **Hope you guys enjoyed the extra long update!**

 **I did shorten and tweak the events of Frightmare to match season 1, and accommodate Conan, of course.**

 **Thank you all so much for the support! You're all amazing readers :)**


	10. Chapter 10

Fenton's unnatural eyes bored into Conan, almost glowing in the dim mattress factory. Half-ghost eyes, apparently. Or at least half-something. Either way, they were clearly demanding an explanation. His friends stood behind him, arms crossed while Hattori looked at a loss for what to do. Why, why, _why_ did he always wind up getting involved with a bunch of nosy kids?

There was no way out of this one. They were going to pry answers out of him with every bit of strength they had. What else could he do? Fenton had seen his dream (he couldn't help but believe that to be true after what he'd witnessing what he had in the past couple days, despite his resistance to the idea). If Fenton's group tried to investigate on their own, there would be catastrophic consequences—there was no telling where Gin was and how many eyes and ears he had. People talk. So, his hands were tied. All he could do was try to keep this whole situation from getting even more out of hand.

Conan cleared his throat and picked at his sleeves. "I'll tell you, provided the information never leaves this room. But you guys have to understand that this isn't your fight; I don't want anyone else getting involved in this. It's too dangerous."

"Oh, please," Fenton scoffed. "I fight ghosts every day."

Conan scowled, anger bubbling up inside of him. He was too naïve. "You don't understand. This isn't _about_ ghosts. The bad guys don't just go away in a magical beam of light. This is about people living here now! Innocent bystanders, Guilty parties involved, the people trying to stop them…don't you _dare_ insinuate that it's anything to be taken lightly. You say that we need to trust each other? Trust this. This is so far beyond the game of cat and mouse you seem to think it is. No matter how invincible you think you are, you aren't. You're fourteen! Do you want to damage your life irreparably? Any number of things could happen. Are you prepared for them? Before you know it, everything spirals out of control, and you've ruined everything, and you end up just like—" _Just like me._ Conan stopped in his tracks and took a deep breath. He had to keep it together. Ignoring the stunned look on everyone's faces, he put his hands on his hips. "How long have you had these…powers, exactly?" Conan was still very hesitant to put stock in the existence of 'ghosts', but he was just going to have to learn.

Danny bit his lip. "Uh…like, four months? Ish?"

"Four—four months?" Conan pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes, pushing his glasses further up his face. He couldn't watch someone else get into something dangerous. Not when Conan knew just how serious the consequences really were. "Just…no experience, no training, no nothing, you started fighting these things? You could get hurt!"

"As if being half dead doesn't already count? Someone has to do it, and I'm the best equipped for it," Fenton snapped, glowering at Conan. "You're a freshman, just like the rest of us, Hattori guy aside, and you're new here. What makes you the oh-so seasoned veteran of ghost hunting all of a sudden, huh? I've been handling myself just fine."

Sam and Tucker glanced at each other uncomfortably, and Hattori looked at the ceiling with an unreadable expression. Looked like Hattori was going to stay out of it.

Conan clenched his jaw. "I don't claim to have much experience with this whole ghost business, but you have no idea what's in store. What happens if there's a problem that's not solved with the blasted thermos? Are you prepared to look over your shoulder for the rest of your life? To leave behind people you love to protect them? Just how far are you willing to take your role as Danny Phantom before enough is enough?"

The temperature seemed to drop as the unspoken question hung in the air. _Are you willing to die?_

"I don't know! I don't know!" Fenton's eyes momentarily flashed green. Conan backed off as Sam and Tucker rushed forward to sandwich Fenton between them protectively.

"It won't ever come to that," Sam asserted. And yet, Conan did not miss the very slight waver in her voice. She knew—hell, they all knew, Conan could see it—that what Fenton was doing _could,_ in fact, come to that. And they were choosing to do it anyway.

Conan took a step forward. "How can you be so sure?"

"Lay off them. We were like that too," Hattori said softly.

"Oh, and look where it got us," Conan retorted. Maybe it was harsh, but it was true. "Danny, Sam, Tucker, do you want to see the price of throwing yourself into things way above your head? Here." He yanked his sleeves up to show the scars. From their expressions, they got the message.

"Conan…" Fenton trailed off.

Suddenly everything seemed so very loud. The wind outside felt like it shook the building, the scraping on the floor grating to his ears as Hattori fidgeted. He could almost see the flames licking at his vision as he stood there. He looked around the room, at Hattori's hurt face, Sam's and Tucker's tight lips, and a stubborn determination set in Danny's eyes. He was doing it again, wasn't he? Pushing everyone away.

"I'm sorry—God, I'm sorry. I know I'm not being fair, pressuring you like this. I'm just…" Scared. Guilty. He went back to picking at his sleeves. "I'm just worried about you. I want you to understand the risks of what you're doing. I've been through a lot, and I don't want to see these things happen to anyone else."

"Just tell us what happened," Tucker said, impassive. "Hattori said, 'we were like that too?' What did he mean?"

Conan steeled himself and lowered the volume of his voice. "All right. Swear on your life that the truth never, ever leaves this room. Swear you will never tell anyone, not one single person. Or ghost. All three of you."

They all swore. No turning back now.

"Good. This is information that could get a lot of people killed, and I mean it. Before I start…" Conan looked over at Sam and Tucker and gave a basic overview of his dream. If he didn't, then Fenton would, and it might sound a little better coming from him. They were going out on a limb to trust him enough to ask him to work with them, so he had to pick up the slack on his end of the bridge.

"You're still having that dream?" Hattori asked, his voice laced with concern.

Conan nodded. "Yes, but that's not the point. The point, everyone, is that that was not just a nightmare. Those were memories."

Fenton paled. "Memories? But when Shinichi Kudo was…and…" He wrapped his arms around himself. "Who were those men in black?"

Conan instantly froze, Hattori doing the same on instinct. His hands curled into fists. "Those men worked for the Black Organization before the headquarters was stormed. They were after me because I was trying to get their fingerprints by putting tape on a disk holding a program that they had agreed to pick up. I won't go into the details, but it was a close call for me. If they had opened that locker the rest of the way…" Conan didn't have to say that he wouldn't be standing there now.

Sam looked thoughtful, bursting with questions. "So the Black Organization was the international syndicate that was taken down four years ago? How did you get involved with them?"

"They ruined my life," Conan growled. He sighed as he got ahold of himself. He supposed he had to address this sometime. "In the summer of 1996, I went to Tropical Land—that's an amusement park in Japan—with my friend. While I was there, there was a murder and those two men were very suspicious. So I, seeing them later, told her to go home without me and followed them behind a building where I found a blackmail transaction taking place. I thought I was being a good detective, I really did. I had a camera with me, and I took pictures of the whole thing, not realizing that the man's partner was nowhere to be seen. He snuck up behind me, and…"

Fenton frowned, and Conan could see the gears in his head turning. But it hadn't been Edogawa on the ground, right? "But the dream."

This was it. Conan's palms sweaty, and his head screaming at him not to say it, he opened his mouth. "They fed me an experimental poison meant to kill me, but it didn't his job." A bitter laugh escaped Conan's lips. "Sometimes, I think it did worse." He glanced at Hattori, who simply nodded solemnly. "I'm afraid that Kudo Shinichi isn't as dead as the media has led you to believe. He's just not quite in the state one would expect to find him in."

It was so quiet that he could've heard a pin drop.

"You're not implying…?" Fenton began. No one wanted to say it.

"It's not an implication; I'm saying that there's no 'Edogawa Conan.' My name is Kudo Shinichi."

"Oh." Fenton vigorously ran a hand through his hair. "Oh." He looked like he was starting to understand why Conan was the way he was. "How is that possible? What are you even doing in Amity Park?"

Coming over to plant himself at Conan's side, Hattori said, "That's where I come in. Because of all of Kudo's work in gathering intel and organizing the takedown, the FBI decided to give him honorary status. As such, because of how personal it is to track down and detain this specific member for him, he was sent to deal with it. I'm here from Interpol to handle the police support."

"Oh man," Tucker groaned, "we really are in over our heads."

"Remember that this stays _secret._ You treat me the same at school or anywhere else in public. We are so close to arresting all of the listed members. Two left. Just two. If either one gets away, it'll have all been for nothing. Four years of gathering intel. Deaths and injuries of everyone involved. Four more years of spending every waking moment hunting down the members in hiding. All for _nothing_ if we can't succeed. And trust me, nothing pleasant happens to me if they find out who I really am." Conan grimaced. "And someone might already."

"Who?"

Conan looked up to meet Fenton's eyes. "The boss of the Organization used the tune of a children's song, _Nanatsu no Ko_ , for his phone number. During the, uh, confrontation with Dr. Spectra, she whistled it, which would have been bad on its own, but it was directed at me. She knows something about me, at any rate, so we have to act quickly."

"Spectra?" Tucker exclaimed. "She has something to do with all this? But how would a ghost be involved with a human syndicate? Ghosts normally won't have anything to do with humans." His eyes widened. "Unless she's been using her camouflage ability to feed off misery this syndicate causes."

"Yes, that's my concern. It's possible that she's an unlisted member. And that means that there could be more." Conan paced around with a mounting feeling of dread, thinking of the possibilities. There was never going to be a way out, was there? No matter what he did, the Organization was always going to find a way to be one step ahead.

"If it's ghosts, then we can help. That's our department, after all. We can check out the situation on that end. Discreetly," Fenton added at the alarmed look from Conan. "I promise we won't let you down, as long as we agree to a truce. A permanent one this time. We keep each other's secrets, and have each other's backs. Maybe we aren't professional police or whatever, but what you've got on your plate totally sucks. Maybe I don't get it exactly, but I can understand enough. If Sam and Tucker are okay with it," Quick nods of confirmation from both of them, "then I want to help. If you'll let us."

Really, this was the exact opposite of the outcome that Conan had been hoping for. What part of _I don't want anyone else getting involved_ didn't anybody around him seem to understand? But at the same time, Conan couldn't help but admire their willingness to help, even after all the misunderstandings and hostility. They were offering to open up a door to a whole other side of things to help him through this. They all had good hearts, the kind that made Conan want to let them in.

But that was what he was worried about.

Because the good die young.

Conan wasn't sure how long he was standing there thinking on it. He didn't want to cause the trio any more trouble than they had already gotten into. But at the same time, was it really fair to judge their capabilities based on their age? Conan sure knew a thing or two about that. The least he could do was give them a chance. No one else was going to get hurt on his watch—he would make sure of it. If Fenton's group was willing to extend their trust to him, he had to take the leap and return it.

Conan straightened up. "Truce accepted. We're in this together now."

* * *

 **The cat's out of the bag!**

 **That concludes phase 1 of this story. I hope you enjoyed!**


	11. Chapter 11

To put it gently, Danny felt a little like he had been punched in the gut. When it was framed like that, well…he really _didn't_ know what he would do if faced with a situation a little Fenton magic and resourcefulness wouldn't fix. Ghost fighting, he always knew was going to be dangerous, of course, but he had just always felt like he had a safety net to fall back on—there was always a new invention or something that would help him save the day, or if he fell his friends would pick him back up. Somehow, up until now, everything had always worked out, and he supposed some part of him figured that it would always be that way. Now, the harsh reality of uncertainty was settling in that came with a haunting fear deep inside of him of the true consequences of taking up the mantle of hero. His palms sweat as his mind raced with doubts.

Of course he knew that he wasn't invincible. But to know it and truly believe it are two different things sometimes.

Danny was now being smacked with the realization that fighting ghosts had become something of a routine song and dance, witty banter and comedy as an act one to the whole show of a battle. It was all a veil he had pulled in front of his own eyes to protect himself from the real threat of ghosts. If they really wanted to, they could level Amity Park and burn all its citizens to the ground. It wasn't always going to be some trash cans or walls getting destroyed and then thermos time. Suddenly, the name _Danny Phantom_ seemed to be a burden heavy on his shoulders. Someday, if somebody died at the hands of a ghost, Danny knew that he would always see the red on his own hands.

 _Just how far are you willing to take your role as Danny Phantom before enough is enough?_

Danny liked to think that he would gladly lay it all down to protect Amity if it came down to it, but how could he really be sure? He had a life in here, one that wasn't perfect but was his. He had friends and a family that he couldn't ever imagine leaving behind, goals he could never stop pursuing. To start back over completely from scratch would be unimaginable. It would be torture.

 _Man,_ he thought, _I'm fourteen. I'm not ready for this._

Only four months he'd been doing the Danny Phantom gig, and sure, it left scars, cuts, bruises, tears. But the image of the burns was imprinted in his mind—how many rounds of skin grafts had it taken for Conan's—Kudo's arms to heal? More pressingly, he had a hunch as to just who was responsible for them. It had only been a fever dream, but the piercing stare of the man in black still seemed to slice through his very core, wearing him down to his very essence. To think that he was a real person in Amity Park was not something Danny wanted to think about too much.

In fact, the whole situation was not something Danny wanted to read too much into.

Yet he must. Standing right in front of him was _the_ Shinichi Kudo, risen from the grave but still in the shadows. It seemed impossible—ghosts were one thing, but this was another thing entirely (though, he supposed, he was long past the concept of "impossible"). Danny couldn't even begin to grasp how hard it would be, to be right there surrounded by the scraps of your life, and never able to take them and glue them back together, to actually have to "kill" yourself and never say a word about it, to spend so long trying to pick up the pieces for nothing.

It made a lot of sense, though. Conan—Kudo—didn't really act much like anyone else at Casper High. The awkward quality to his voice in what Danny assumed was an attempt to sound younger, the calculating look ever-present in his eyes, his distance to everything…once Danny's eyes were opened to the truth, he could see all the evidence in plain sight.

Danny was snapped out of his thoughts by Sam clearing her throat. Glancing around at everyone, he could see that Kudo's long silence was starting to wear upon the room. Hattori was squinting at Kudo like he was trying to send brain waves to influence his decision as Tucker and Sam fidgeted, creating soft sounds that echoed through the huge room. All eyes were fixed on Kudo.

Finally, he looked up and straightened his posture. "Truce accepted. We're in this together now."

Danny let out a breath he didn't know he had been holding. "All right. Where do we go from here? Spectra's not exactly an easy ghost to find."

"I can't imagine that any…ghosts," he still sounded reluctant to even consider saying the word, "are easy ones to find. How do you all normally deal with them?" Kudo asked as he crossed his arms.

Danny reached up to rub the back of his neck. "We, uh…"

"We kind of just leave them alone until they attack Amity, send 'em back to the Ghost Zone, rinse and repeat," Tucker finished with a shrug. "It's kind of hard to actually track a ghost, since they can like, you know, phase into the ground and stuff. I'm pretty sure Danny's parents are in the beta stage for a tracking device right now, but it's not at the level of finished that we can use it. And a normal tracking device would either slip off the ghost when they turned intangible or just plain stop working."

Kudo tilted his head to the side, his glasses slipping down his nose a little bit. "This Ghost Zone, this is where ghosts live?"

"In a manner of speaking," the corners of Sam's lips twitched upwards. "Since they're dead and all. We honestly don't know a whole lot about it, other than that it's the spooky green place that the ghosts come from. It's still pretty uncharted territory."

"All right, then I guess we're just sitting ducks until she makes a move?" Kudo sighed, his shoulders slumping a bit.

Pretty much. Danny was barely handling the ghost fighting as it was without worrying about tracking them through the Ghost Zone. Besides, what was he going to do? Knock on the door to their lair and give them a lecture on manners? Somehow, he didn't think that would be too well-received. It was better to try not to provoke them until they actually left the portal and started firing.

"It's not so bad," Danny chimed in. A piece of glass crunched underneath his shoes, momentarily bringing his eyes back to the broken dream machine. "Spectra is more subtle—a _lot_ more subtle—than the others ghosts we've encountered. Knowing to keep an eye peeled out for her still beats being taken by surprise again. And besides, I know her trick to hiding herself from my ghost sense now. It'll be harder for her to do anything unnoticed next time."

"True."

"Not to derail, but does anyone else think that we should get out of here before people who work here show up and see a trashed factory and five very guilty-looking people standing around in the middle of it?" Tucker cut in. "Everyone should be waking up or awake now with the Nocturn gone."

"Good point. The last thing any of us needs is attention." Hattori turned away towards the exit and motioned for all to follow. "I think everyone's beat anyway. I know I am."

And now, with the adrenaline leaving his system and the aftermath of the fight lying scattered and still all around him, Danny was feeling the exhaustion. His bones ached from all the fighting, and he was certain he would be covered in bruises later. All he wanted to do was sleep. On the street, everyone parted to go to their own houses, Danny trudging through the door of Fentonworks fifteen minutes later with an inability to keep his eyelids open for a second more.

As fate would have it, he didn't really get to sleep; the familiar chill ran through his system and startled him awake at two in the morning to go deal with that absolute nuisance of a ghost. If he heard "beware" one more time, Danny might actually consider just leaving him in the thermos instead of being nice and letting him go back to the Ghost Zone.

It was almost normal, the late Box Ghost run with banter and all, but at the back of his mind, a voice whispered to him, _Sure it's only the Box Ghost, but what if things went south? What if tonight's the night that the thermos fails you? I don't know if I can trust you to keep things under control anymore._

Despite his fatigue, once Danny's head hit the pillow again, he found himself unable to sleep.

* * *

 **Jeez I'm so glad I finally got this out - this chapter gave me a lot of trouble, but chapters after important events always do. In addition to that, I was moving and it's been extremely difficult to find the time to work on this. I know it's a bit short, but well, a bit of a bridge must be built between phase 1 and 2. I have a week-long break coming up so I'm hoping to crank out an update or two next week.**

 **Hope you enjoy nonetheless!**


	12. Chapter 12

"I think we need to talk about your choice of wardrobe," Kudo said the next morning _directly into his ear_. Danny let out a startled yelp and jumped backwards, dropping the math book he'd just pulled out of his locker and trying to ignore the backwards glances of the passing crowd of students. He didn't particularly feel like giving people another reason to bully him today.

Danny shot a half-hearted glare at Kudo as he moved to pick it up. "What are you, the fashion police?" Just because they knew each other's identities now certainly did not mean that Kudo got to have adult authority over him, especially for something stupid like that. If Kudo didn't like his shirt, fine, but it wasn't like he had to be rude about it.

"No, but I _am_ concerned about your choice of clothes when you do your…" Kudo paused, dropping his voice, "extracurricular activities. We can talk about it this evening perhaps?"

Oh, come on. "There's nothing to talk about—" The bell rang, cutting him off. "Joy," Danny deadpanned. "English with Lancer. I heard from the other class that he's making us analyze 'the American dream' or whatever in _The Great Gatsby_ today."

Kudo's nose wrinkled in distaste. "Can I get exempt from this since I'm not American?"

"You wish," Danny countered easily, a small, relaxed smile appearing on his face. It was almost like the whole Nocturn thing had never happened, even as his eyes strayed to Kudo's sleeves. It still felt too surreal to be true; how could the complaining teenager in front of him be a dead international hero?

But hey, he had a schedule to keep. Not too much time to have a reality crisis now.

Lancer's room always smelled like a library (and cologne, but so did the entire rest of the building; that was high school), with shelves on the walls packed with worn books like _The Picture of Dorian Gray_ and _Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde_. Lancer himself was sitting at his desk, watching everyone enter over a messy stack of graded papers. Danny would have bet his ghost half that the _F_ he saw peeking out in the middle belonged to him thanks to _someone_ who said "beware" a lot and would literally not leave him alone.

As everyone settled in, he handed the stack to Star to pass out to everyone. "Good morning, everyone. Your quizzes on _The Great Gatsby_ were very good overall; it was clear to me that _most_ of you were paying attention. However, I'm going to have to ask Miss Sanchez and Mr. Weston to see me after class to talk about grades. But that aside, I wanted to talk about Fitzgerald's view of society during the time period…"

Danny tuned him out as he got his own paper back, a big red _C-_ written in the top left-hand corner with "Elaborate!" underneath. Better than he'd been expecting, and he certainly wasn't going to complain, especially since he didn't even read half the book. Plus, that meant he got out of having to have another meeting with Lancer after class or worse, after school.

That evening, Kudo showed up at his house again right on schedule with the same flimsy yet effective excuse: project for school. Danny had been poring over his constellational maps again, and stuffed them into a drawer as the knock came on his bedroom door. Kudo didn't bother with introductions as soon as the door had clicked shut behind him.

"So about your wardrobe…" Well, Kudo certainly did not waste time doing what he set out to do.

"Please do tell me what's wrong with my clothing," Danny said with an eye roll as he stood up and changed forms, giving himself an exaggerated examination. "Give it to me straight. Is this suit so last season or what?"

Kudo frowned. "No, unless 'so last season' entails a complete lack of precaution. Your face in…Phantom mode is completely exposed for the whole world to see. I can see every detail and you're supposed to be in your super-secret identity form right now. That's dangerous for obvious reasons," Kudo paced a bit as he spoke. "I mean, your hair color changing really doesn't do much to hide your identity, you've got to admit."

"But no one makes the connection. Whenever Phantom appears, I'm usually kind of busy punching ghosts, so it's hard to get a good picture. And besides, I'm just kind of, like, below average at school. Dash sees me up close every day and he practically worships Phantom, but he doesn't see it," Danny argued. "And even then, the idea that someone can be half-dead is impossible."

Kudo held up his index finger. "Improbable, not impossible. There's a wide gap between the two, as Sherlock Holmes could well tell you. Here's what I think: the people in Amity Park believe in ghosts, and the people who know you, barring Sam and Tucker of course, have preconceived notions about you based on the version of yourself that you present in public. Even one of those two factors is enough to cloud someone's vision enough not to recognize you. So what happens when you take an outsider, me for example, who has neither of those things? There was nothing stopping me from recognizing you the instant I saw your face in Phantom mode. There's hasn't been a good picture of you, but the keyword here is _yet._ "

Darn it. Why did he have to have so many good points? But it wasn't like he could just _change_ Phantom's costume. He wasn't even sure he _could_ change it, though he'd never tried before. Plus, it was iconic. He didn't want to raise any eyebrows by getting a makeover now.

"All right then, what do you want me to do about it? There's not exactly a convenient 'Superheroes R Us' around the corner. And what if I don't want to change it? The suit's kind of grown on me."

"I'm not asking you to wear a clown suit, you know. You can keep your costume if you want, but I'm just saying that you should have something to cover your face. Could be a three-dollar Halloween mask from Goodwill for all I care. It's just that I worry for you as is since you're such a public figure in Amity Park. Sure, it's only one town, but you know that Amity Park is known for its massive 'ghost hoax?'" Kudo sighed tiredly and put a hand up to his cheek. "Please. If not for your sake, then for my sanity."

"Now hold on just a minute—oh, never mind." Somehow, Danny didn't think he was going to win this argument. And, well, with everything that had been going on around him under his nose, Danny didn't particularly want to be taking big risks anyway. "But for the record, we are not stepping foot in Goodwill for this."

Kudo's eyes seemed to warm up as his lips turned upwards. "Deal."

Two phone calls (because Danny didn't like doing anything regarding Phantom without input from Sam and Tucker, even for something as apparently trivial as this) and a hasty 'trip to the store for the supplies' excuse thrown at his parents later, four people sat in Sam's bedroom. Danny tried not to cough from the strong scent of candle smoke that always clung to the air.

"I'm not saying 'I told you so,' Danny, but I _am_ saying that I always thought your identity was too open, what with the name and all," said Sam, leaning casually against her black metal headboard.

Danny scowled playfully. "That's just saying 'I told you so.'"

Sam tilted her head and stuck out her tongue. "Is not." Straightening up, she turned her head towards Kudo. "But then, what do you propose for a mask, Mr. Kudo?"

Kudo's eyes widened a fraction as he waved his hands in front of him. "Woah, okay, first of all, there is no need to call me 'Mr. Kudo,' and I would actually prefer it if you didn't. If you start thinking of me as Kudo instead of Conan, then you're bound to form a habit that might slip at a bad time. Hattori knows something about that; don't tell him I told you so, but he used to slip up _all the time,_ and he still does sometimes. So yeah. It's probably kind of weird for you anyway, to address someone your apparent age as 'mister.'"

It was, kind of, but Danny hadn't wanted to be rude.

Conan's eyes slid over to the scissors sitting next to Sam's computer next to the black strips of cloth left over from the modification of the newest 'gift' from her parents. Danny could hazard a guess as to what it used to look like—it obviously had not been too well-received.

"No," said Danny before Conan could get any other terrible ideas. "I'm not wearing spray painted floral print. We can do better than that."

"Danny, I have a legitimate question for you." Sam reached under her bed and pulled out a purple notebook with a white spider web pattern that he had never seen before. "How goth are you willing to go?'

Danny shrugged. "I don't know, that probably depends on how harsh Mrs. Owens graded my last lab report." He did not miss the little _"ouch"_ that Tucker whispered. "But isn't goth your thing?"

"Sure, but that doesn't mean that there isn't enough to go around." Sam's hair fell in her face as she looked down and flipped through the notebook. "I must admit that I've given some thought to your costume before—even before I knew it was going to be important, and you're welcome for ripping your dad's face off your chest by the way—I even designed some symbols for you. But the point is, I've followed not really the same, but a similar line of thought as Conan before so I have some mask ideas here if you want to look at them."

The pages were filled with pencil drawings of a ton of different masks (including Majora's Mask, Danny couldn't help but notice with a slight grin), everything from classic black ninja masks to jumpsuit hoods. How had he never noticed Sam working on all this? Honestly, he was a little touched that Sam cared enough to put all this time into energy into improving Phantom. As he looked up and caught Sam's eye, who cleared her throat and guided his finger to one design in particular.

It was kind of a half-skull. It would cover the top half of his face while tapering off unevenly to give the illusion that it had been broken, leaving his mouth, chin, and the bottom of his nose exposed to make it easy for him to breathe. The top was stylized with slightly jagged edges instead of a more rounded normal skull, complete with blackened tips.

It was _perfect._

"Sam, you are the best, and also officially appointed head of costume improvements," Danny praised. "Really, thank you. It's, uh," and there he went, messing up his words again, "really cool of you to make all this."

For some reason, Conan and Tucker looked at each other with a knowing look.

Glowing with pride, Sam smiled. "Well, I'm glad you like it. It's just kind of a matter of actually making it now."

Suddenly, Tucker gasped loudly and his hand shot up in the air. "If I make it, can I put in cool tech enhancements?"

Danny hadn't even thought of that! Oh, this was going to be so cool! "Uh, _yes_ you absolutely can, and in fact I highly encourage it." He could almost see the stars in Tucker's eyes.

"Give me a week."

And voila, problem solved.

A ringing sounded over the quiet Dumpty Humpty music playing from Sam's computer, and Conan slid his phone out of his pocket and snapped it open. He paled as he stood silently, a grim expression overcasting his face. By the time he got off the phone, he looked a bit like he was about to have a panic attack. He was breathing heavily with one hand on his jacket in the place that he hid his gun.

Nervous energy crackled through the air in the room. "Conan…? Are you okay?" asked Tucker, tentatively stepping forward.

"That was my boss. It seems that there's been an incident at Baxter Hotel. A really bad one."

Danny's heart dropped into his stomach. "What kind of accident?"

"Incident. This was no accident. You don't know this, but Baxter Hotel was the last place that Gin—the man in black who poisoned me and the one in my dream—was seen."

A cold draft blew into the room, chilling Danny to the bone as wailing police cars raced past the Manson house on the street below.

* * *

 **I feel like it's a lot of words for a small costume change, but here it is all the same.**

 **Sorry this took so long! It's just been really, really difficult to find the time and motivation to work on this these past few months, though I've done some planning work so I have a more outlined direction now which should make it easier.**

 **Side note: I did not edit this very thoroughly so I apologize for the mistakes that I'm sure are in there. I'll fix them when I see them.**

 **Hope you enjoyed!**


	13. Chapter 13

Disaster scenes were always more or less the same. Conan had seen enough yellow tape in his life to paint all of Tokyo the color, and enough police cars to write a manual on them. Ambulances constantly came and went, always leaving a ringing in his ears by the end of the night while panicked relatives tried to follow. And crying. Lots and lots of crying. The half-collapsed mess that had once been Baxter Hotel looked much the same to Conan as he arrived, even hours after the initial blast, various officials shouting into their radios and flashing blue lights illuminating the dark building. All the fires had already been quelled, but the smoke still hung thick in the air. He glanced towards the parking lot; no sign of the Porsche.

"What's a kid doing here?" A very familiar voice demanded loudly. Conan looked up to see Hattori jogging towards him with a quick reassurance to some policeman that he would escort him off the premises. With a quick wink, Hattori grabbed his hand and led him away from the front of the building with a very authoritative expression (a little over the top, in Conan's opinion) before dropping it as he started to circle back around out of sight in the nearby alleyways.

"The back entrance doesn't have as many people around it," Hattori whispered. "I can distract anyone there for a minute while you slip in. After that, I'll join you to help you investigate." He grimaced. "We both know that this wasn't a 'gas leak' or whatever they'll be saying on the news tomorrow morning to cover it up. Let's just hope that some clue is still standing in that big pile of rubble."

When they had gotten around the building, Conan watched Hattori march into the area and start throwing around his Interpol authority by declaring that every single person was going to have to be checked for their IDs and licenses to be there. Any murmur of an argument was quickly shut down with the flash of a badge. It was enough to keep all attention on him for a moment while Conan slipped in quietly without a hitch. Pausing a beat to wait for Hattori, he soon appeared and they proceeded with caution inside the ruined hotel.

It was in about the state that Conan expected—all the lights were out, obviously, and he once again thanked himself for his habit of carrying a pocket flashlight with him. This section of the hotel was pretty intact, but the debris littering the floor and the cracks in the walls got more and more numerous the further in they went. Thousands of pieces of shattered glass crunched under their feet from the chandeliers, glimmering under the gaze of the flashlight. A burning smell still lingered in the air, stinging Conan's nose. Even so, they had a job to do. They had no idea which room Gin had been staying in (if he had been a client at all), so they were going to have to check them all. Luckily, Hattori had thought ahead and had already gotten an override key for all the doors.

The further in they got, the more agitated Conan got. Upon investigation, all the hotel rooms were empty or just had the personal items of a normal client inside. Conan was starting to get worried that they wouldn't find anything in the section of the building they could go to reasonably safely. But then, it was possible that the origin point of the explosion had been wherever any evidence was left in the first place. Why an explosion though? That seemed like an awfully conspicuous way of getting rid of evidence. Sure, it wasn't the first time that Gin had done it, but it seemed a little unnecessary when he could have just as easily packed it all up and left without a trace.

"Last room," Hattori remarked behind him as he reached over and slid in the key on the ash-smeared lock.

The room looked like it had been uninhabited at first glance, but a sweep of the room revealed a torn piece of black cloth hidden under the mattress and leftover materials for a manually made bomb jammed inside a messily cut pocket in the bottom of the armchair in the corner of the room. Conan frowned at the objects in his hand and furrowed his brow.

Hattori gave a long sigh. "This is all off. What kind of highly seasoned criminal leaves such incriminating evidence lying around for any detective worth his salt to find? Definitely not this one."

Nodding, Conan deposited the evidence into a bag that Hattori had brought. "I was thinking the same thing. I can't help but wonder what the point of all this was. An explosion that doesn't even hide anything? Gin doesn't make these kinds of mistakes. What do you make of it, Hattori?"

"I don't know," Hattori pondered with his hand on his hip. "Either someone here was his target and he didn't have a readily available scapegoat for a normal murder, or he was _trying_ to get the attention of the police. Why, I can't imagine—he's been spending all his time up until now trying to _avoid_ the attention of the police. He's been on the run successfully for four years, so I don't see why he would jeopardize his freedom now."

"Maybe he caught wind of the fact that the FBI is on his trail." They left the room, the door closing behind them with a soft _click._ "That would give him a reason to try to both confirm it and sniff out the principal agents on the project. Or…" Conan's eyes widened in alarm. "Or this is a distraction so Gin can leave town unnoticed!"

"Shit," Hattori cursed as he grabbed his phone from his pocket and immediately dialed a number. "Jodie-san, we think that Gin might be making a dash to skip town right now. Block every road immediately. Tell your agents to be on their guard."

Conan instinctively reached for his gun as he followed Hattori out of the building, but Hattori gently put away his own before putting a hand on his shoulder. "Kudo, I know you're capable of taking care of yourself, but if you're right about this, the last thing we need is for him to catch sight of you. I need you on support, not on the front lines. And besides, you know better than anyone how to predict his movements."

"Hattori, you know I can't stay on the sidelines while he's getting away," Conan snapped, a nervous edge to his voice. He'd always known the danger and continued on his mission anyway; he wasn't about to change that now. Gin was going to pay for what he'd done, one way or another.

"I normally wouldn't be the one to stop you, but what if he finds out that you're still here? Maybe we'll finally catch him tonight, but maybe we won't. And if we don't, then you know what probably happens to you. Gin is slippery. All the security in the world doesn't guarantee your safety, and I…" Hattori paused and took a deep breath. "Can I speak frankly? I've almost lost you during this hunt for the Black Organization. All I see you do is think about the next threat; I never see you smile anymore, take pride in solving mysteries, call me an idiot without meaning it for taking a 3am train to come see you over the weekend. I know all this has been difficult, but I want the chance to see that Kudo again."

"Hattori…" Conan was at a complete loss. How was he supposed to respond to that?

"I just miss you is all," Heiji said softly before his jaw hardened and he stepped back to draw his gun. "Jodie-san is going to contact you soon about your position. If escaping is what Gin is doing, let's hope it goes well." And without another word, he turned and left Conan by the door of the ruined hotel.

In a way, Conan found himself longing for the old Kudo too.

Not that he had time to think too hard about that. His phone buzzed and he left to go meet up with Jodie-san.

The entire night passed with no sign of Gin, not in or around Amity Park. Even with everyone on high alert, he had completely vanished after the bombing. Maybe Hattori had been right—maybe it was a person who had been targeted. But it was still odd, the obvious evidence and the explosion together. It left Conan feeling like he was missing something, but he could do nothing but keep his eyes open and his weapon close. It frustrated him to no end that he couldn't offer much in the way of real help in the case of an Organization-related emergency. Not without putting himself in mortal danger, at any rate.

In another universe, in another lifetime, none of this would have ever happened. Conan wondered for the millionth time how things could have turned out like this. It was unfair. It was just so, so unfair.

Once Conan had gotten back into his apartment an hour before he had to leave for school, he headed straight for his closet and pulled out a shoebox hidden in the back behind his clothes that Haibara had told him to throw away three and half years ago. Inside, was a glass bottle with a single white pill sitting inside. The last temporary antidote. He knew that it was keeping dangerous evidence of his past, but every time he tried to get rid of it, something in the back of his mind stopped him. Taking a peek at the pill was captivating, always sucking him into a black hole of 'what-ifs.' He stashed the bottle back into its hiding place before heading to bed, but it almost seemed to be watching him from its box, laughing at the concept of Kudo Shinichi.

"You seem on edge," Sam said matter-of-factly the next morning before the bell rang in Lancer's class. "Let me guess—it has something to do with the Baxter Hotel thing and your mysterious exit last night?"

Conan absently sharpened a pencil without looking up. His mind was crowded with too many theories and possibilities to keep track of, and he could hardly concentrate on anything. "He might have gotten away last night. We have no way of knowing unless he shows up again, which seems unlikely given the massive amount of police activity."

"Ouch," cut in Fenton after a short pause to ascertain who 'he' was. "What are you still doing here? Shouldn't you be doing…I don't know, police stuff?"

"There's only so much I can do without arousing suspicion. Though, I can't help but feel like he's stuck around. All logic says no, but when you've dealt with these people for long enough, you develop kind of a sixth sense for them. I don't know how to explain it, but I can't shake the feeling that something's not right."

Fenton opened his mouth to reply, but promptly closed it as Mr. Lancer came in and closed the door. He seemed to be trying to pick his words very carefully.

"I'm sure that you've all heard the sad news this morning, or maybe heard the explosion last night. It breaks my heart to see the amount of loss." Lancer sat down at his desk tiredly. "Baxter Hotel was a big source of revenue for the town, so I know that many students here had parents working there. I would just like to give my deepest condolences to those of you who lost someone last night. I understand that you are going through a lot, so I'd like to talk over a revised schedule for schoolwork and absence waivers during this difficult time with Mr. Baxter, Miss Jones, and Mr. Willis. Again, I am truly sorry that this happened."

The class was much more silent than usual during the lesson. Lancer wasn't sarcastic even once during the entirety of the day.

And still, Conan could do nothing about it. He felt like he couldn't think straight, just turning the same facts over in his mind. The obvious evidence left that Gin was the culprit for the bomb. The origin of the explosion seemingly calculated to just miss Gin's hotel room. The race to catch him before he left town. Something didn't add up.

If Conan supposed that the explosion was a distraction so that Gin could get away, that would require that he have knowledge of the investigation in Amity Park, which he was unlikely to have figured out on his own thanks to the extreme precaution. It was possible that someone had tipped him off. Maybe even Spectra, if her apparent ties to the Organization were more than just a source of misery. But if he had known, why would he leave obvious evidence to implicate himself? All that did for him was put the police on high alert in and around Amity. This whole business would have made it _harder_ to escape, not easier. So the question was one big why. It made no sense for Gin to have done what he did. He was a cold, calculated killer with years and years of experience keeping a low profile, even after the destruction of all his safety nets within the Organization. Even if he did know about the FBI and Interpol presence, it would have made much more sense to just leave. It wasn't like they knew where he was or they would have captured him long ago. There was no reason at all to draw attention to himself like that.

So what the hell was going on?

* * *

 **Hope you enjoyed! I wanted to have this out for the one year annversary of this fic, but well, it's a little late. Still, I can't believe the support this has gotten in that year! It means a lot, thank you all for the love 3**

 **Things are gonna start getting very interesting very soon ;)**


	14. Chapter 14

After three days, the mood at school was just as oppressive, even if the teachers tried to pretend it wasn't. It was a lot to take in—too much to take in. Sure, ghosts attacked all the time, but it was never so serious. No one ever _died._ But this was real, and in the blink of an eye the Baxter Hotel was reduced to a whole lot of nothing. No one was sure what to say to Dash and Star—they had stopped coming to school after the first day after the incident, probably because everyone had been walking on eggshells around them. As much as he detested Dash, he would have never wished something like this on him.

The news had called it a gas leak, a tragic accident, but Danny knew better. Conan had given them an idea of the oddity that was the Baxter Hotel explosion, but after that he'd kind of gone off into his own detective world to try to reason it out. Not that Danny claimed to understand the nuances of the entire situation with his extremely limited experience in underground criminal organizations, but even he could see where the math didn't quite add up.

His first thought was that Spectra might be involved. After all, Conan had said that she had blatantly exposed her ties to this mysterious organization. Maybe it was just because it was his kneejerk reaction to attribute anything weird to ghosts, but Spectra was a different kind of ghost. She was cunning, careful, _ruthless._ Danny had never met a ghost like her; most came screaming their intentions at whoever was terrified enough to stand still and listen. But her? She kept her cards close to her chest, and given what had happened at Casper High, she didn't care who she had to tear down to get to whatever she wanted. She had a finger in every pie and she was not afraid to use them all against whoever got in her way.

To be honest, it scared him a little. It was overwhelming, to suddenly be thrust into a whole other side of things that he hadn't known existed or he wouldn't have slept at night. He felt completely unprepared for everything that was coming his way, but what could he do but try to keep afloat among the tide?

Maybe he was just letting the whole business get to him. Still, his intuition kept nagging at him to say that she was definitely involved. In Amity Park, ghosts were always involved, whether the problem stemmed from them or not. Danny's best guess was just the odds being against them—after all, with his family's portal sitting in the middle of town and what must be thousands of years of ghosts waiting for their chance on the other side…it wasn't hard to see why it was such a problem.

A few minutes before the bell rang, as Mr. Lancer was finishing his lecture, Danny quietly tapped Conan on the shoulder, visibly snapping him out of whatever train of thought he had been following. "I can't help but think that Spectra is involved," he whispered. "Imagine the misery that an accident like this causes. And you said yourself that she's connected somehow to this organization. So…"

Conan bit his lip in thought. "I see your point, but I don't know. From the way you explained her powers to me, I gathered that she kind of trails behind the Organization and feeds on the misery caused by them without actually working with them to mutual benefit. Whether she's done anything or not, she definitely knows _something._ Still, even if she were involved in the explosion, why would she do it?" Conan held up a hand. "Like, okay, she uses misery to keep her young and all that, but what deeper motivation would she have to implicate Gin with the evidence left behind? If that were all, she would have just blown up half the building and been done with it."

"I would normally agree with you, but Spectra's a different kind of ghost than what I normally deal with. You say something's not right? I guarantee you that it has something to do with ghosts," Danny retaliated.

"We can consider the possibility, but in the meantime, I want to investigate more closely what it has to do with Gin's movements and plans for the future." Conan looked back down at his blank loose-leaf paper. Danny turned back around in his seat and inwardly scowled.

The bell rang for Lancer's class, and he gave out yet more detentions to people who he deemed were "slacking off," including Sam and Tucker. This surprisingly did not include Danny, but he was going to take his Lancer Luck while it lasted. He had other things to worry about.

Danny gritted his teeth just a little and tapped Conan on the shoulder again. "I don't think you're listening to me. Have you forgotten that Spectra knows that you have something to do with those people? She could sell you out."

"I know, okay? I know that she's dangerous, but we have not ascertained in what way. I'm just not sure that's really the most probable answer; she's connected to the Organization in some way, I don't deny that, but she's also a ghost. What reason could she possibly have to work with humans? Her interests shouldn't lie in that half of the world anymore," Conan reasoned as he twirled his pen around in his fingers.

Danny really hated arguing with Conan. "But you shouldn't dismiss it just like—" His sentence stopped short at the sound of someone clearing their throat behind him.

"Correct me if I'm wrong, but I do believe the bell has rung. Don't you boys have another class to get to? Or is the conspicuous whispering about your next hot date just so important that you couldn't possibly stop in the middle?" Danny jumped and looked up to see Mr. Lancer looming over them, his arms crossed, a dry expression pasted onto his face (though Danny was personally convinced that Mr. Lancer had been wearing the exact same expression since 1982).

"Sorry," Danny mumbled as he shoved his English book into his bag, slinging it over his shoulder. "Come on, Conan."

Conan still seemed elsewhere as he slid out of his chair and grabbed his bag, heading out the door with Danny. Mr. Lancer watched them go before shutting the door behind him and fishing his phone out of his pocket.

They didn't really say much to each other the rest of the day, but they still met up after their last class and tried to have a lighter conversation, like he would have with Sam and Tucker had they not had detention. It still struck Danny as a little odd, that Sam and Tucker had gotten detention for "slacking off" and not him. He was by far the one with the worst grades out of the three of them.

" _Anna Karenina,_ where are those kids?" Lancer's voice carried above the crowd of students as he marched down the hallway. He raised his voice. "School's been over for twenty minutes! If any of you think you can just walk away from a detention, then I've got news for you!"

Some other straggler laughed as she shut her locker door. "Mr. Lancer, aren't you going to run out of books to yell dramatically one day?"

"The world of literature is vast. There will always be another work of merit to explore the elements of, whether it's a well-known work or not." Mr. Lancer sighed and turned back the way he'd come, presumably to go looking for whoever was skipping.

Danny looked over at Conan to ask if he was ready to leave, but stopped dead in his tracks when he saw the thinly veiled horror on his face. "Woah, what is it?"

Conan looked tense, like he was ready to for a fight at any minute. This did not reassure Danny. "What did she mean by 'running out of books?'"

"Oh, well, I'm sure you've noticed that Mr. Lancer likes to use books whenever he wants to exclaim something. He's never said the same one twice. I heard there's even a good-sized betting ring on whether he'll reuse a title or not." Danny rubbed the back of his neck anxiously. "Uh, why?"

Now Conan looked ill, and a cold feeling rushed through Danny's veins. "Never?"

"I've never heard him use repeats, anyway. But _why_ do you want to know? Because you look sort of freaked out and it's freaking me out."

"Oh _shit._ He used _Anna Karenina_ once before when I was alone with him." Conan grabbed Danny's shoulders with a tight grip and whispered,"Danny, has Mr. Lancer done anything else odd lately? Anything at all, even just one little tiny thing?"

Danny's mind raced, but nothing had seemed out of place to him. Mr. Lancer was always Mr. Lancer, with his book swears and his ridiculous attempts to be "hip" and his very dry, monotonous lectures. He really didn't like where this was going. "Well, I guess he's been giving out an awful lot of detentions or after school meetings lately." It was true that Mr. Lancer had always been a little free with detention slips, but it had been much worse lately, even before the Baxter Hotel explosion with everyone on a short temper.

"We have to go to Lancer's room, _now._ This reeks of a certain someone I know. Come on," Conan hissed, grabbing Danny's arm and leading him down the hallway as fast as they could go without running. "I think you may be right about Spectra selling me out after all."

"Are you seriously saying that that's not Mr. Lancer?" Danny's heart pounded as they made their way to Lancer's room. If one of the Organization members Conan had talked about had been right under his nose…he could hardly think about it, his mind going back to the icy eyes of the gray-haired man.

"May very well not be," Conan grunted. They stopped in front of the door and hesitated before Conan raised his arm and lightly knocked. "I really hope I'm wrong, but if not, I hope we're not too late to stop whatever she's doing."

"Come in," came Lancer's (or not?) voice.

"Uh, apparently there's a family emergency and Sam and Tucker have to go right now. It's very important. And urgent. It's…well, it's an emergency you see," Danny stuttered out, inwardly screaming at Sam and Tucker to get out of the room right now. Everyone in the room stared at him silently. "It's, uh, very urgent."

Sam and Tucker exchanged uneasy glances.

Raising an eyebrow, Mr. Lancer stuck a bookmark in his novel and set it down on his desk. "You mean to tell me that you, Mr. Foley's and Miss Manson's best friend, has come to tell me that sudden hardships have fallen upon both of their families at the same time while they're in detention? Forgive me if I'm skeptical," he drawled. Danny looked over at Conan for help, but Conan apparently was busy studying Mr. Lancer. Great, so he was going to be left on his own.

"It's about the Baxter Hotel thing," Danny blurted out. It was in poor taste, that much was true, but it was also something that nobody would argue with so soon after the incident.

"Oh, I see." As Mr. Lancer's frown deepened, Sam and Tucker scrambled to stuff their schoolwork into their backpacks and get out before anyone had the chance to object.

"What's this all about?" Sam demanded in a hushed tone as they half-jogged towards the exit.

Danny shrugged in her direction.

As soon as they were a reasonable distance away from the school, Conan spun around abruptly, bringing everyone else to a halt. "I am not sure that the Mr. Lancer sitting in Casper High right now is really Mr. Lancer. Aside from Gin, there's one other Organization member who managed to escape our grasp: Vermouth, a master of disguise."

"What, is she trying to spy on you?" asked Tucker. He was looking more and more uncomfortable by the second, which Danny understood. If this was really an impersonator, what had they said? Had they done anything that might give their plans or secrets away? How narrowly had they escaped danger every day without even knowing it?

"I don't know that it's even her. Why would she call a bunch of random detentions if she were after me?" Conan chewed his lip a little bit. "I really hope I'm wrong, but Mr. Lancer did two things out of place and I don't believe in coincidences. Especially not with how close the Organization has been lately."

"Well, let's confirm or deny it then," Sam cut in. Her lips twisted a hint upwards. "I've heard other teachers mention a big staff meeting tomorrow after school. Why not pay his lovely home a little visit in the meantime?"

* * *

 **It's sleuthin' time.**

 **I know updates have slowed down a lot, and I'm sorry.**


	15. Chapter 15

"And you're absolutely sure that there's a staff meeting going on right now?" Conan asked for the millionth time as they stood in front of the most vanilla house he'd ever seen. It looked more or less like all the other houses in the neighborhood—a red brick house with some bushes by the front porch and neatly cut grass. A moth flew by the outdoor light in the rapidly fading sunset, and Conan briefly wondered how many rules he was breaking by being there. He hadn't told Jodie-san about Fenton's identity, and he _definitely_ hadn't told her that he'd told them his identity. He could only imagine the earful he was going to get when the FBI found out about it.

"Yes, I'm sure. Mrs. Mattioli explicitly said that she wasn't going to be doing her usual after-school tutoring sessions today because of it." Sam rolled her eyes before frowning and glancing at her skull-shaped watch. "Where's Tucker? He should be here by now."

Right on cue, Tucker skidded around the corner panting, his backpack hanging from one shoulder. He almost crashed straight into Fenton, but stopped himself just short. Everyone stared as he pulled off his backpack and reached inside, producing the skeleton mask he'd promised the week before. Considering the situation, his one-man a capella fanfare seemed a little loud and a little much, especially when he held it over his head like _The Lion King._ The mask itself looked like it was made of metal smoothed to perfection and painted white.

"Why, I do thank thee, Fryer Tuck, from the bottom of my heart," Fenton proclaimed, puffing out his chest and resting one hand over his heart.

"It's not like I could fit that many features into it with my relatively limited skills in building hardware, but I think I managed to get in some pretty wicked stuff," Tucker boasted, lowering the mask and flipping it over to reveal a black lining on the inside. "I've put fireproof rubber on the inside because it would probably be bad if the mask got hit and caught on fire with Danny's face in it. But anyway!" Tucker smiled and looked up at Danny. "Lucky for us, Sam was willing to part with some money for materials. This thing would be so dangerous otherwise."

Leaning forward eagerly, Sam ran a finger over the side of the mask. "What all does it do?"

"Look, I hate to be a spoilsport, but staff meetings don't last all night," Conan interrupted, impatience finally getting the better of them. Sure, the mask was great, but they were on a bit of a time limit and they had a whole house to investigate. Besides, they weren't exactly hidden from the view of any nosy neighbors at the moment.

"Okay, yeah, fair enough. But I brought it today 'cause I thought it might be useful. Also to give it a test run, I guess. Right now, it's got night vision and…well, I may have sort of taken a look at the beta notes for the Fentons' ghost tracker the last time I was at their house. It's actually quite fascinating; it utilizes what they've coined as an 'ecto-signature' to—"

Conan sighed. "Tucker."

"Yes, yes, pressed for time and all that. The tracker may or may not work, depending on if Danny's parents' plans are sound or not. Seemed that way to me, but like I said, I'm more of a software than a hardware kind of guy. But anyway, I thought the night vision might be useful."

"Thank you, Tuck," Fenton said. "Really. This is really cool."

Finally, they all turned towards the house and walked around it to the backyard, which looked equally boring with a small patio and a green lawn chair. Otherwise, the yard was completely empty. The backdoor was, of course, locked (worth a shot), and all three of them glanced at Fenton.

"There better not be any security cameras," he muttered. White rings enveloped his waist and spread outwards, turning his hair white and replacing his clothes with his suit. "I'm holding you all personally responsible if my face is plastered all over the news tomorrow."

"You checked if there were security cameras, right, Tucker?" Sam asked nervously, scanning the back wall for any signs of spying eyes.

"Of course I did! I'm kind of offended that you would even ask." Tucker handed the mask to Fenton to try on. "I didn't find anything, so I don't think we have anything to worry about."

The three of them grabbed on to Fenton as he made himself intangible and phased through the old wooden door. It was a weird feeling, like if someone had poured cold water over Conan and lightly shocked him with static electricity. But hey, what works works. If it got them into Lancer's house, then he could hardly complain.

The back door led into the kitchen, which was completely spotless. Not one pan out of place, not one stray bread crumb, nothing. Hell, it looked like a cleaning service had been living there for a month. It was one thing to be a neat person, but given the circumstances, it warranted a second look. A room that was hyper clean was less conspicuous than one left to gather dust if someone ever decided to look, after all.

The rest of the house looked much the same. It was all very ordinary—couch, TV, desk, small dining table, tasteless paintings, etcetera. It was pretty much exactly the sort of interior design that Conan would have expected from an American middle-aged English teacher.

"So if you think that the Mr. Lancer at school isn't the real one…what do you think this person wants with us in detention?" Sam pondered as she peeked under the sofa cushions. "I mean, Tucker and I were in detention yesterday and I can't remember anything bad happening."

"Actually," Tucker glanced at Sam, a hint of worry appearing in his eyes. "I can't remember anything at all. I remember walking in and sitting down, but after that I come up blank."

Sam stopped in her tracks. "Me too."

Well, that was worrying. Memory loss wasn't really something up Vermouth's alley as far as Conan knew. It wasn't like the Organization had some magical memory-erasing device even before the storming of the headquarters. If they had had one, they would have certainly used it on anyone who had any kind of information rather than killing them. Killing left a trail of blood the cops could follow, no matter how efficiently it was covered up. Even so, this wasn't something that Conan was willing to chalk up to the simple boredom of being in detention. Suddenly, everywhere they turned, there was a new oddity to be found in Mr. Lancer.

"I don't know what to tell you," Conan said. "We'll just have to keep investigating and see if we can figure something out. There might be a clue to the memory loss too."

"Hey guys?" called Fenton with a slight tremor in his voice. "I think that you should see this."

All three of them rushed over to find Fenton zeroed in on the wall above the bed, his mouth turned down into a frown. "Here, this spot on the wall."

Sam leaned in closer and furrowed her brow. "But there's nothing there."

Conan paused. Yes, but Fenton was also wearing equipment that the rest of them weren't, so could it be that…? "Luminol is a well-known substance for uncovering hidden blood splatters, but infrared imaging is also used in forensics," Conan explained. "And night vision goggles—"

"—also see infrared light!" Tucker finished gleefully. "That's not a use I'd thought about, but I'm suddenly glad I made the extra push last night to have the mask ready for today."

"So am I." Conan held his hand out in front of Fenton. "Can I see that for a minute?"

Fenton complied and Conan held up the mask to his face. Sure enough, it was blood. And judging from amount, there had been a struggle. "There's a larger splatter and then a trail leading downwards, like he hit his head and was dragged against the wall by the perpetrator. There's no dent though, and you would have to hit your head extremely hard to shed this much blood from a blunt-force blow. However, there's also a patch on the corner of the headboard, which makes me think he was woken up in a panic and opened a wound on the back of his head from that first."

He turned and followed some smaller blood splatters across the carpet, stopping at another large one. "It looks like the perpetrator picked him up and left him here for a little while, probably to find something to tie him up with. Did anyone find any rope or zip ties or anything like that in their search?"

"There was some rope in the garage," said Tucker.

Conan absently handed the mask back to Fenton and followed Tucker's lead back to the garage, finding a nice bundle of tightly coiled rope. Several tufts of frayed rope poked out at the bottom of the pile, not that he could say that any missing rope had been Vermouth's handiwork. "Are there any blood stains, Danny?"

"Not here," he replied. "Most of the house is clear, save the bedroom of course."

So there was no way to confirm or deny whether the missing rope was related, but as far as Conan was concerned, they had their evidence either way. The bloodstains were too fresh to be anyone else's. They were even painted over and the night vision lenses were picking up on them. Still, it would be a good idea to take a second look at everything to see if they missed anything. That was the first rule in the book for detectives.

So they reentered the living room and took another look around. The sun had sunk below the horizon and Conan was starting to get antsy—how long did a staff meeting usually last? They weren't about to be caught red-handed by Mr. Lancer, were they?

He glanced around the space, eyebrows knitting together as he noticed a gray smudge around the fireplace. _Seems odd that whoever cleaned would have missed a spot given how meticulous they were,_ he thought. Fenton seemed to have noticed the same thing, and they glanced at each other as they cautiously approached the fireplace.

A charred log sat between the black bars in a mound of ashes. Nothing unusual. Unless, of course, one accounted for the fact that it was literally the only thing in the entire house that had visibly been used. Why would they not have cleaned the fireplace? Conan reached out his hand to start sifting through the ashes, but Fenton beat him to it, grays and blacks smearing onto the pristine white gloves.

A flash of red caught Conan's eye, and his stomach jumped a bit. "Wait, wait! I saw something!"

"What is it?" asked Sam and Fenton in unison. Sam came over to investigate, leaving Tucker to continue his search on the other side of the room.

He reached in and gently extracted a burned card from the mound. Half of it was missing, leaving a jagged black edge, but the other half was certainly recognizable enough. Conan could barely tear his eyes away from the smiling figure in the photo. The eyes of Penelope Spectra on her Caspar High ID card stared back almost mockingly, raising an eyebrow and demanding the truth from him: _Do you feel numb, Conan? Do you care about anyone?_

 _Of course I do. Everything that happened isn't my fault. I did whatever I could._

But that was only an empty mantra Conan told himself to get away from the guilt and he knew it. He didn't have the mental space to deal with Spectra right now—how was he supposed to handle someone like that, always two steps ahead and laughing along the way?

Automatically dropping the card back in the ashes, Conan quickly and quietly composed himself. He mindfully took each breath to shove down the ugly feelings resurfacing in his chest. The last thing he needed right then was a confrontation with his own feelings. "Looks like you were right after all."

"So Spectra really is involved in this," Fenton thought out loud. Reaching over to pick it back up, he examined the card more closely. "But if it's her who's been impersonating Mr. Lancer…then how did she hide herself from my ghost sense? Lancer's room isn't cold like the counselor's office was. I should have sensed her forever ago."

"Unless—" Conan paused as Fenton drew his hand across his lips. Sam and Tucker fell silent on cue, and they all stopped to listen. For a moment, there was only the sound of the wall clock ticking, but then he heard it: the sound of quiet footsteps on the tiled floor. His mouth went dry as Fenton's arms shot out and made all three of them invisible.

"Get over here, Tucker! Now!" hissed Fenton urgently, pulling them all forwards to meet him in the middle. The footsteps got louder and louder, and Tucker dived behind a chair as "Mr. Lancer" came into the room. Conan dared not breathe, keeping one hand over his mouth to keep in any unintentional noises.

"Mr. Lancer" set down his briefcase and keys on the coffee table and produced a sleek Blackberry phone from his pocket. He took a quick scan of the room before apparently deciding that nothing was out of place and settling down on the couch. Inputting some number Conan couldn't catch on the phone, he yanked out some kind of device hidden under the collar of his shirt. "Brandy," a hauntingly familiar feminine voice started coldly, "I've finished the job, so he's all yours. I'll be sending the samples along to you tonight as directed. And you had better hold up your end of the bargain. I don't want to see any kind of law enforcement on my back ever again, got it?"

A pause as "Brandy" responded.

"All right. Yes, I'll see you there. I'm skipping town as soon as we're done." Vermouth lowered the phone from her ear and hung up as she sunk further into the couch. "I need a drink," she muttered grumpily.

Conan's gaze shifted to Tucker, who had peeked out just a tiny bit from behind the leather armchair, eyes wide with horror. Conan looked over at the empty spot next to him, silently pleading Fenton to pull some magical ghost trick to cross the room without making any noise and without dropping him or Sam. But all they could do was stand there and pray.

Vermouth turned her attention towards the fireplace, her expression darkening as she got up and examined the ashes around the log. Taking the card sitting on the top of the pile, she narrowed her eyes and grabbed a lighter from her pocket. After setting the rest on fire, she threw it back in and took another look around the room. She moved as if ready to drop into a defensive stance at any moment. Fenton, Sam, and Conan all scrambled backwards to avoid her.

She frowned and picked the briefcase back up, heading in the direction of the bedroom. Still, they weren't out of this yet. Fenton jumped on the window of opportunity, stealth be damned. They had to get out of there, and they had to get out of there _now._ He shot forward, Sam and Conan in tow, letting Sam scoop Tucker up as they barreled towards the wall. He could hear Vermouth running back into the living room as the feeling of cold water came back and they phased through the wall. They didn't dare stop until they ducked into an alleyway from sidewalk.

"That wasn't Spectra," Tucker wheezed out between heavy breaths. He opted to slump against the dumpster for support. "That was…the 'Vermouth' person you mentioned yesterday, I take it?"

Conan also rather felt like he needed to sit down. "Yeah." He ran a hand through his bangs, feeling not twenty-four, not fourteen, but forty. "Yeah, that's her. We have no time to waste. We have to know what she's doing and where she's going."

What was Vermouth's connection to Spectra? The most logical conclusion was that they had somehow formed an alliance. Sure, all right. Conan could roll with that theory. The problem was that he had no idea what the goal was. Vermouth had mentioned something about samples…but samples of what? For what purpose? This seemed to be the result of something that had been in the works for a while. He was supposed to be the experienced one. How could he not have seen Vermouth right there under his nose?

He had obviously been getting too wrapped up in his own affairs. Ever since he'd come to Amity Park, it was always one thing after another. He was too deep investigating the details to see the bigger picture around him. But if Vermouth was working with Spectra, then it didn't seem to him much of a stretch to say that Spectra was also likely working with Gin. He was just stuck on why. Not to mention this Brandy character. Brandy was not a codename that he had ever encountered in the past and it was not one on the member list pulled from Ano Kata's computer. A whole host of new questions and theories flooded his mind.

There had to be some kind of connecting line hidden under the layers of disguise, and Conan intended to find it. Both Vermouth and Gin in the same place raised a massive red flag that bad things were on the way. To sort this out, he was going to need help.

He turned back to the kids. He hated to do this, but plans were most effective with backup. "I think it's time that you all met my boss."

* * *

 **And so...the mystery continues...**


End file.
